Panama Scouting - Day 25 Panama City - trip home
Hola from Panama City!
Today was a long, long day. We were picked up at the hotel in Boquete at 06:55 and whisked to David so we would arrive two hours early for a domestic flight - really! We got on the plane at 8:45 and waited and waited and waited, then took off at 9:30 into the wild blue yonder, not knowing that it might have been even wilder than we thought. About 20 minutes into the 45-minute flight to Panama City, the plane turned around and went back to David because of "safety issues", which turned out to be warning lights about the landing gear. But, land, we did, back in David. We sat on the runway for half an hour while they determined that it was not an easy fix, all piled out and waited in the terminal. At 1:00, they announced that the flight was canceled and anyone who wanted seats on the 6:00 pm/18:00 flight would be accommodated. We heard many sad stories about missed connecting flights, long-awaited appointments at consulates that would be missed, dogs and cats that were already stressed out, and kids that were running on low power by 1:00. but struggling through the wait and air-time for the 6:00 flight would be too much. They brought us lunch from Subway, and there we sat.
David is a small airport - what they have the most of is security. We couldn't bring water into the terminal waiting area, but we were promised that drinking water from the bathroom sinks via our hands was safe (ha! who knows where those hands have been!). If we left the area, we had to go through the whole passport check and security scans again. Whew! Apparently, this doesn't happen often, as people who said they fly that route several times per week noted they had never been affected by a cancelation.
Our problem was not a connecting flight, but an appointment for a Covid test scheduled at the Panama City hotel and required within 24 hours of departure to the US (by the US). Luckily, Miguel saved the day! We could only find the local hospital as a place to get rapid Covid tests in David and not having immediate appointments, but one of the harried airport employees told Miguel to go out to the taxi stand and ask a driver to take us to a fast Covid testing lab, or a BioMedica lab, and see if we couldn't get the printed results within an hour or two, and then return by 4:00 to catch the 6:00 flight. So, we scarfed down sandwiches, dashed for the taxi stand, and caught a taxi driver who knows a lab where a friend works, and the friend would get us results and back on time. And he took us there, negotiated the timeframe (immediate), waited with us for 30 minutes to get the results, and drove us back to the airport with our negative printout so we didn't have to change tomorrow's flights.
Whew!
We still spent a lot of hours in uncomfortable chairs watching silly cat videos, playing solitaire, and reading Kindle books and the New Yorker. The air conditioning was scheduled for only a few times a day when flights go out of that terminal, so they set up two giant fans hoping to cool the giant room (not so much since it was 95 in David today, and we were in a terminal with 30-foot ceilings and floor to ceiling windows on three sides). We were not allowed to walk away from our backpacks (security), so one of us would stay with our stuff while the other did a walk-about. Dogs whined, kids whined, adults whined; it was a long day. I feel very sorry for the poor Copa airline folks who had to deal with 150 whiney passengers alllllllllllll day!
Tomorrow, we take a 5-minute taxi ride ($20) to the airport by 05:30 for our 07:46 flight to Miami, where we sit for 8 hours before our non-stop to Seattle. We hope for the best.
And what about those photos? Photo #1 is our plane sitting at the gate waiting for someone to fix it. It was still there when we left on a different plane at 6:00 pm.
Photo #2 is our Darth Vader suitcase - the only one we could get on short notice when the wheels broke on our usual large suitcase the day before we left Seattle.
When our luggage was misplaced in San Francisco and didn't show for two days, and then with the problems of today, I thought that Darth might not make it. But, apparently, Darth makes for an intimidating suitcase, and not an inviting one, as I had worried. I shouldn't speak too soon - we still have two flights to go!
Tomorrow our vacation ends, and I cannot promise an email because we will be all day in airports or airplanes and we won't be home until after midnight. But, I will report in on Thursday, just to let you know we got home safely and whether Darth made it with us!
Buenas Noches, friends!
Mary Bea y Miguel