Greetings from Bogota Airport! Well, we haven`t exactly made it to Ecuador yet. After a four hour mechanical delay in Chicago yesterday, we ended up mising our connection in Miami by five minutes! Oh well. We were rewarded with an unforgettable view of Chicago`s skyline from the southwest as we finally took off.

We knew we had some serious hurrying to do in Miami airport as soon as we touched down. We had a plan in place to split up, go to various airline desks, obtain our backpacks, recheck our packs, grab a quick bottle of water, etc. One thing we were not expecting to do as we rushed through Concourse A was bump into our dear friend Adam Farber. Adam lives in Chicago, works in NYC and by no means was supposed to be wandering around Miami airport. He was in town for less than 24 hours for a business meeting and we bumped into him in one of the most obscure corners of Miami airport. As were rushing, sweating, running, hurting to get our flight, Adam tagged along for the rush and was with us when we learned the fate of just missing it.

Luckily we talked the American Airline guy into giving us a hotel room for the night. Since our connecting flight wasn´t with American he claimed we weren´t eligible. He said he`d speak to his supervisor (which seemed to consist of him looking over his shoulder for a couple seconds) and produced a voucher for the Crown Plaza. Not bad, other than the realization that we had to be back at the airport for 5:00 AM.

So, there we were...Rachel, Farbs and I in Miami airport (Adam´s flight wasn´t taking off for another few hours). Only one thing to do...get some beers and dinner. Conversation mainly consisted of how we couldn´t believe we bumped into each other....that, and which sushi roll we were going to order next (Thanks for dinner, Adam!).

We then bid farewell to Adam, made our way to the hotel, slept for 4-5 hours, then made our way back to Miami airport ready for a minor confrontation with Avianca airlines as to whether or not we had to pay them a change fee because we missed our flight. One thing we noticed was airline representatives at airports never truly have a solid answer to your queries. We received three different scenarios from the American Airlines people, and then a few from the Avianca representatives as to what our fate was with getting a new flight. When we arrived to the airport early this AM it seemed like the Avianca folk were aware of our situation already and they were very friendly in getting us on our way to Quito and they didn´t charge us a fee. The women at the desk the night before were adamant that we would have to pay and they did a very good job at making us feel ridiculous whilst sweating and panting after an all out sprint with our packs on through the airport. Nice blokes this AM though!

Now we have a couple more hours in Bogota before our final connection to Quito. We don´t have much freedom of movement within the airport, however there´s an ample duty-free selection (with a huge Juan Valdez coffee depot). The nicest place to sit and pass time happens to be the smoking lounge...free newspapers, TV (Simpson´s in Spanish when I popped my head in), nice arm chairs facing the mountains, etc. It´s sponsored by the cigarette giant Kent and the British American Tobacco Company...go figure!

So, hopefully the next report will be from Quito. We´re excited to arrive, but as Clark W. Griswold once said, "Getting there is half the fun, you know that!"

Cheers,
Jason