On Friday morning I got up at 4:30 am and took a taxi to the airport. (My itinerary is Mpls to Orlando to Panama City to Cordoba) My flight left at 7:30 am and I arrived to Orlando, Florida where I had a 3 1/2 hour lay over which was good because I ended up waiting in line for about 2 hours trying to get a boarding pass. I did not need to check my luggage because luckily Northwest and COPA have an agreement where the customers who are flying internationally can check their luggage only once and it follows them all the way through to the final destination. That was great!! However, I was waiting in line with all these Panamanians going home with about 10 pieces of luggage each and there were only 3 ticket agents helping so it took a long time to get through the line.
The flight from Florida to Panama was about 3.5 hours and I thought I was going to take a little nap. However, I sat next to two young people. One named John Alejandro and he was originally from Ecuador but was in the navy and lived in North Carolina and there was Lori who was from Kentucky and she was going to visit her sister in Quito, Ecuador for two weeks. Her sister is in the Peace Corps working at a half-way house with delinquent boys in Quito. So all three of us ended up talking for the whole time. It was great company. There picture is in my photo gallery.
Then from Panama City to Cordoba I had no layover time and I got immediately onto the next plane. I was so nervous that my luggage would not follow me and get to Cordoba on time but magically it made it all the way. What luck I had!! I arrived to Cordoba at 3:30 am and customs was really easy to get through. It doesn´t take forever like it usually does on the border between Mexico and USA. Walter and his friend Roberto picked me up in this little truck and we went driving through the city and were to their house in about 30 minutes. Roberto was driving pretty fast and he made me nervous. There were all these young people on their motorcycles driving on the streets and Walter told me that motos are really common because its too expensive to have a car and pay for gas, etc. so all the teenagers have motos. The bad thing is there are lots of accidents because of the quantity of motos and cars on the streets. But I arrived safely to their home and we visited until almost 7 am. I was exhausted!! I was traveling for more than 24 hours. So I slept from 7 am to 1:30 in the afternoon. I awoke to a fabulous lunch of Milanesa (breaded steak) and salad. I also drank a traditional beverage called Fernet and Coca Cola. Fernet is made of many types of herbs and it thick like syrup and to thin it out they add Cola. It is suppose to be healthy because of the herbs its made of. There are also pictures in the photo gallery of the food and drink.
