The next flight out of Panama City was the next morning…the day that Peggy and Ravy ‘SHOULD’ be getting locked into their container!
We contacted the boys and told them we would meet them at the airport at 2pm. We would get there early and try to get us some seats on the flight as long as they could be there for take off.
Hiske and I dragged all of our bags to the airport and went to the desk to check that our names were on the waiting list. “what waiting list?” Of course, there was no waiting list! I wanted to go and find the smirker and show him just how angry I was but instead we asked that we had our names noted incase any seats should become available. The lady at the desk assured us there would very likely be seats and to go back and pay for them nearer the time of take off. We sighed relieved and my anger subsided. Long live the memories of easy Jet2 flights to Barcelona! We sat and waited and all the time watched the door as the clock ticked nearer to two! The last thing we needed was for us to get the seats but the boys not make it in time!
At 1.55 Hiske was stood in the queue to pay as I sat with the bags and the boys walked through the door with their tattoo’d faces and wrinkled clothes. Of course we had had the bags with all of their clothes and wash things in and they had slept in their clothes in the van. Gaby on the floor of all places! I felt the smile creep over my face as I realised how much I had missed Alex! It was our first night and day apart since we had left the UK! They both looked so worn out and I began to wonder how we would all stay awake on the flight, then a boat and then finding somewhere to stay! With that Hiske came over with an angry face and a tear in her eye. There weren’t any seats available! The woman that had originally told us there were seats had apparently misunderstood what Hiske had meant and there had never been a chance of getting any seats on that flight! The frustration was all too much but we were too tired to get too upset, we just had to take it on the chin and go and find somewhere to stay for the night while we found another way around getting to Colombia. We looked online for accommodation but it was all showing fully booked! Typical after the day we had had. We even looked into chartering a flight but of course no-one got back to us!
We eventually found a cheap hotel, again in the less than nice part of town, and dragged our sorry selves into a taxi. We had to laugh at our luck when the taxi broke down. Alex got out and pushed (with his tattoo’d face…just a reminder and so you can imagine the scene!) as the driver tried to jump start the car in reverse. Looking at the taxi it was a miracle it had started in the first place. Ultimately we gave up on the taxi and put on our heavy packs and started the walk to the hotel in the blaring heat…and it was full.
We walked another few blocks and found another hotel that had rooms! I think we were all close to tears at that point.

To make up for such a bad day we decided to go out for dinner to commiserate. We ate at a nice restaurant and we treat us all to a nice bottle of wine. It was a perfect way to forget about our achingly annoying misfortune and we all went to bed full and ready to start a new day….which SURELY had to be better!!??
On that shiny new day we resigned ourselves to the fact that we were stuck in Panama City for another few days while we waited for the next flight. We enquired into sailing (against all advice as it is terrible rough seas),we looked at every possible way around paying for the $400 flights directly to Cartegena but it was slim and expensive pickings. In the end we bit the bullet and booked the direct flights. we were defeated, depressed and sick to the back teeth of unhelpful people. The one benefit was that as the flights were so ludicrously dear they had a no fee cancellation policy. That cheered us slightly and we colcluded that we would go and try again for seats on the next domestic flight and if successful we could cancel the others. That dull decision done we made the call to just take a taxi to the old town, Casco Viejo and try to enjoy the rest of our time in Panama.
We found a hostel and collapsed into our rooms. We wandered the old (if a little filthy) town and watched as swarms of workers busied themselves with sprucing up the place. In a few years we imagine the place being somewhat similar to Antigua, a restored Unesco site with some lovely restaurants and boutiques, it was beginning to show some potential. After our stroll We made some dinner and opened a bottle of wine just as some of Gaby and Hiske’s friends arrived. They had met Tineke and Jose earlier in their travels and they too were from Holland and trying to get to Colombia! Small world!
We bought more wine and some beers and we all sat in our room and chatted the night away. It was just what we needed to forget about the traumas of getting to Colombia for the night!
The hostel was fully booked for the next few days (of course) so we spent the next morning looking for yet another cheap hotel and all 6 of us packed up all of our things again and traipsed back into Panama City to our 4th cheap hotel room. We were just stuck in limbo and it is so depressing!
We found 2 rooms with 3 beds in each and the boys stayed in one and us girls in the other. We all got an early night and wasted the day…why not when there is nothing else you can do???
The next day was our second attempt at getting on that domestic flight to Puerto Obaldia. We packed up our things YET AGAIN and dragged back to the airport. We arrived 3 hours before the flight was due to leave and to our dismay when we went to put our names on the list for cancellations there were already 5 people on it!!!!!!!! 9 seats! The chances were so slim we didn’t know what to do, should we even bother waiting? We couldn’t afford not too, so wait we did. We sat, we read, we wandered, we ate breakfast and then someone came and asked us for our passports!!!! This was 15 minutes before the flight was due to leave. We all 9 of us got excited and handed over our ID. The lady disappeared and then a man in a high-vis vest came and waved his arms at her and then came and asked if we were getting on the flight. We all said “we hope so” and he said “well you had better hurry up as it is leaving now!”. 10 minutes later the woman returned with our passports and told us the flight had left with 3 empty seats as they had failed to leave enough time to get people on! We were furious! we had all been sat there for 3 hours!!! why did they leave it until 5 minutes before the flight left??? Aaarrrggghhhhh I could have exploded even though it wasn’t us to have missed out on the flights as we weren’t first on the list! Another taxi back to the hotel and we just gave up. There was another flight the next day but we just resigned ourselves to getting on the stupidly expensive flight directly to Cartegena. We had well and truely had enough by this point! We just couldnt wait to leave Panama City!!!!!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!