This blog starts with a race against time. Of course it does.

With me flying through Bogota airport, a day late, in a desperate bid to find the others and board the domestic flight to Pereira. There was a high chance I wouldn’t make but that’s all part of the fun right?

But let’s start at the beginning…

It was time for a reunion; Two Small Mancunians and our travel buddy (from many blogs ago) Gemma. We’d decided that for our collective 40th birthdays we were going to reunite and do a month long trip somewhere. There were multiple destination options so Lyvette asked her mate Chat GPT to make the final decision for us. Colombia it was. Myself and Lyvette bought matching brand spanking new Osprey backpacks for the occasion.

I was flying from New Zealand, Lyvette Australia and Gemma the UK and we were meeting in Bogota (the capital of Colombia) on the Thursday night, staying in a hotel then getting a domestic flight the next morning. Great.

My domestic flight from Queenstown to Auckland went swimmingly and all was fine until they announced my next flight from Auckland to Houston was delayed. Which meant I missed my connecting flight from Houston to Bogotá. Which meant they’d put me on the next available flight, so instead of landing at 10.30pm Thursday night it was now 5.10am Friday. And our domestic flight was scheduled for 6.35am. 1hr 25mins to land in an international airport, disembark, clear customs, get my bag, recheck my bags in and get through security. It wasn’t looking good. So I decided to head into Auckland and visit my two friends for a bottle wine to make my delay more exciting.

Meanwhile Gemma was at Heathrow airport 5hrs early (we don’t know why) having breakfast in Wetherspoons with a man with a potential bag full of drugs heading to the Ukraine (we still don’t really know what happened there either). And Lyvette was somewhere in the air heading for Chile.

11.30pm and I boarded the plane to the states. 12am and the plane hadn’t moved. 12.15am and the pilot announced a door was damaged. Lovely.

“But the good news is,” he said chirpily “the flight time is 13hrs30 minutes.”

I’m still yet to understand how that is good news. That is, a very, very long time on a plane. And we already knew the flight duration.

12.45am and we finally left Auckland airport. Apparently the door was fixed and I didn’t witness anything to tell me otherwise throughout the flight.

9hrs45 minutes later after my journey had started and I had finally left New Zealand.

My flight was relatively uneventful. The most exciting that happened was they gave us breakfast and then we got off the plane in Houston at 8.45pm. What’s that about?

I wandered around Houston airport for a couple hours while Lyvette was waiting for Gemma in Bogota airport, fuming that nowhere was open for a beer. Gemma arrived fuming that they’d starved her to death on the plane. But finally they were safe and sound together in Colombia. 

Meanwhile, I was still in the US full from breakfast at teatime, trying to calculate how fast I’d have to run after my next flight to make my connection.

The flight from Houston to Bogota was good. And the stars aligned when the pilot announced we’d be landing early, at 4.50am rather than 5.10am. 

I hunted down the air steward;

“Excuse me, when we land, do you think there’s any way you can let me get off the plane before the others? I have a domestic flight to catch at 6.35am.”

“Erm, no darling, I’m sorry but you’ll just have to run. If I were you I’d be very aggressive and push your way through.”

Ok, well, I guess that’s that then. 

The plane stopped. I was near the front of the plane anyway so was one of the first off.

The air steward look at me and shook his head, his freshly groomed eyebrows wagging;

“Oh hun, I told you to be aggressive. THAT was NOT aggressive!” (I felt so judged by my apparent lack of aggression).

He sighed dramatically and pointed his finger in my face. “Ok, you are going to get off the plane and onto the terminal shuttle bus. Stand near the doors AND DO NOT LET ANYONE PUSH YOU TO THE BACK.You need to get off that bus first and run through customs. Do you hear me?! You’ve got this. You can make this flight hun. You’ll be fine!” and he gave me a wink and waved me off the plane full of moral support and ready to unleash hell with my aggression. 

I did what he said. And I was first in line at customs (win). My bags came off the plane in a decent time frame (win). I found the domestic terminal relatively easily (win). There was an empty check in kiosk (win). I put my bag on the self bag drop (win). The screen smiled at me and told me to continue to security (win).

And the conveyor belt with my bag on it didn’t move. Not an inch. 

“Perdon! Disculpe! Excuse me! Oi!” I yelled at the one man helping the plethora of people whose bags had suddenly developed issues at the bag drop. The man smiled and waved at me whilst continuing to help everyone else but me. 

6am. And I swear everyone’s baggage in the whole of Bogota airport moved except for mine. And the man continued to walk away from my backpack. I thought of my prep talk with the air steward with the groomed eyebrows and channelled my aggression..

“EXCUSE ME! Senor!!!! Necesito ayudar!” (Sir! I need help!) My 7 years of Spanish Duolingo was finally paying off. And I waved my arms like a lunatic, until the man came over.

He simply pressed a button and off my new Osprey backpack went.

Hallelujah!

6.10am. And then I ran. Through security and to the wrong gate. And then I had to stop and do my Duolingo as it notified me I was in danger of losing my 7year streak (and I can’t have that). Then I ran again. 

As I ran down the stairs Gemma and Lyvette came into sight, cheering me on, just as they called final boarding.

I felt like a celebrity.

6.20am. We all boarded the domestic flight to Pereira. 

34 hours later and it seemed we’d won the race against time and the adventure had began…