Beth and I were feeling quite accomplished. We had made it to our final destination in South America - and we’d had a fantastic time getting there. We had braved freezing cold temperatures, made it through a dose of Cipro, lived through 16,000 feet worth of altitude sickness, and logged 249 hours of bus time. We had seen five countries, discovered incredible landscapes, eaten amazing foods, met up with old friends, and had many come to visit us. We were reflecting on all our adventures, and looking forward to the next and last leg of our journey - Central America. Mostly, we were ready for some serious beach time.

But as Beth said as we were waiting in the Quito airport, “We may be done with South America, but it’s not done with us.”

We arrived at the airport with time to spare. We hadn’t been on a plane in two months, and we weren’t going to miss this flight. In the last couple of weeks I had started to feel the inevitable pull of home and all it’s comforts. There was something exciting about making that final flight, something meaningful wrapped up in that $430 puddle jump over Columbia that would bring me one step closer to the home stretch. I wasn’t ready to go home, but I was ready for the fourth quarter.

We stood in line to check our bags and made it to the counter where the woman working check-in informed us that we’d need to pay a $5 tourist fee for Panama. We weren’t expecting this, as we had read that there was no visa fee. Beth and I looked at each other skeptically, and asked if we could just get it at immigration in Panama City once we arrived but were told “no.”

Beth started grumbling about how we could complain in Panama if this turned out not to be a requirement, and then held the $5 “tourist card” up to the light saying, “Well, it looks official” within earshot of the woman behind the counter. (The woman, however, spoke perfect English and probably, embarrassingly, understood). Another Shining American moment for the books.

We sat down in a cafe to do our budget only steps away from our gate so that we could keep the flight screen for our flight in view. The boarding time came and went, but only a few moments later they began making announcements for pre-boarding. We packed up and went to stand by our gate.

We watched the screen flicker from pre-boarding to boarding to final call… but no one had boarded the plane. Then the screen read, “Flight Departed” and everyone looked around confused. The ground crew announced that there would be a 30 minute delay, so we sat down to wait it out.

An hour later they announced that the flight was cancelled, and that we should all head down to the counter to reschedule… for the following day. We’d be spending one more night in South America.

Beth and I booked it down to customer service, after apprehensively surrendering our passports to the immigration officials who were throwing every one’s passports into a big heap. We got in line and waited. And waited. And waited.

It was a full hour before we started moving at all. It was quite a process for each customer, since Copa Air had to retrieve their passport from the massive pile, locate their particular baggage, get the hotel situation figured out and reroute them and their connecting flights. Beth and I passed time critiquing this inefficient system.

Once we were close a rumor started circulating that the morning and afternoon flights for the following day were booked and that we’d be stuck in Quito for 2 nights. I really started to get irritated at this prospect since we were due to meet my friend Kassie in Bocas del Toro in 3 days and this delay was already decreasing our chances that we’d make it on time.

After 2 hours, it was finally our turn, and everyone in front of us was sighing heavily, arguing, or (one girl) melting dramatically to the floor due to Copa’s inability to get them out the following day. I started ranting to Beth and a few choice words slipped out as two young children passed out of the corner of my eye. Beth told me to shush as the father walked by, shooting me an angry look.

I told Beth to do the talking, since I was on the verge of a temper tantrum. The woman (luckily not the one Beth had previously insulted) asked us if Panama was our final destination. We told her it was, sure that this would sentence us to the end of the line, last to get out status. But then she told us she could get us out on a 7am flight the next day. We looked guiltily side to side as the other passengers continued their desperate pleas for flights leaving the next day, shrugged, and said, “Great, we’ll take it.”

We headed to our Hotel, the Hilton Colon, with our taxi voucher, counting our lucky stars and getting jazzed about a nice shower, fluffy towels, a clean bed, and the buffet dinner. We thought back to our Qatar layover and thought, ‘maybe this won’t be so bad.’

We also started laughing about how we’d likely run into the angry father and his kids. We pulled up, and there they were, right in front of the check-in counter. We walked in, me with my head down a bit, and he looked up and said, “Hey! How’d you get here so fast?” The four of them had waited at the ticket counter for about 45 minutes and we had breezed through in 5. We told him that we only had to go to Panama City, with no connections, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

We dropped off our bags in our huge, nice room, and ran down to the buffet. As in Qatar, we were floored by this overwhelming feast. A salad bar, a host of hot plates, a big parilla (bbq), a ceviche bar, and more deserts than we could hope to sample. We did our best to sample all that we could and then raced upstairs to change for the pool.

I went into the huge gym and pumped iron for a short while and then met Beth out by the pool that was warm enough to be a huge bath (Beth: which was good, since it was chilly in Quito). We swam around for a while and then tried out the hot tub. Our favorite family was there and we struck up a conversation with them, learning that the father was a pastor, the mother a nurse, and that they had been living in Ecuador for something like 20 years. We talked with them for a while about their experiences and our travels, soaking up the hot tub, before heading up to bed.

We woke up at 5:30 and hopped on the shuttle to the airport, crossing our fingers that our 7:40 flight would go off without a hitch. Everything looked good when we boarded the plane at 7am. We had to wait for another 40 minutes, though, while the flight attendants searched for missing passenger. Finally the last two missing stragglers boarded and we were all on the plane ready to go… but we just sat there.

The doors didn’t close for another two hours, and in the meantime people were standing up and pacing in the isles. We heard that some people had been grounded in Quito for two days already, and those people were pretty agitated. (Beth: the crew also never made an official announcement as to why we were delayed, and the uncertainty was making everything more tedious.)

Finally, at 11am we took off after over 2 hours in the airport, over 2 hours at the gate, and another hour on the tarmac (not including the 6.5 hours we had spent at the airport the previous day).

But we were finally aloft, en route to Panama City, and we both waved goodbye to South America as we sped toward our final destination.