Tales of travel, humor, sarcasm and other nonsense.

A visit to Panama City seemed like an appropriate ending to our South American journey. Granted, it’s not actually in South America. But it’s close enough for government work (or French scientists).

Sent via email to the Ministry of Aviation, La República de Colombia…

I’m happy to report that I was able to write this blog post from the comfort of our Medellín hotel room. You may be wondering, how did we manage to escape whacko Raoul?

When people think of Bogotá – and Colombia in general – they often think of violent crime, vicious gangs, and kidnappings. Nowadays this is mostly not true. I say “mostly” because George and I have, in fact, been kidnapped.

The city of Quito occupies a narrow valley in the Andes mountains, at a point very near the equator (hence the country’s name). But Quito’s climate and environs are nothing like the equatorial regions you read about in middle school.

We couldn’t get to Cuenca by plane, so we drove from Guayaquil instead. Well, we didn’t drive. A very nice but completely insane local man drove us.

Believe it or not, our brief visit to Ecuador’s largest city was the consequence of yet another flight cancellation.

Our 2016 South American journey began with four nights aboard a riverboat in the Ecuadorian portion of the Amazon rainforest. But before we could get to the boat, we had to clear another aviation hurdle.

Thanks to deregulation and mega-mergers, they say that airline customer service has gone down the crapper. And who doesn’t agree?