Panama City Reunion

We got up early in San Jose and gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport. That being said, it was almost not quite enough. Due to traffic, the travel journey doubled but we still had 2 hours to get checked in and through security. However, days like these remind you of why you arrive 3 hours early. For some stupid fucking reason, when flying in to panama you need a flight out. Now it's common to need proof of onward travel, and, being fully aware that sometimes the San Blas Islands aren't accepted for this, we had a back up. We purchased a cheap bus ticket across the border in case they didn't accept the boat trip. Despite the island tour costing thousands of dollars, for some reason, a 10 dollar bus trip is more valid. With all this in mind, we thought we covered all bases. Yet at check in, the lady held our boarding passes and said we have to purchase a flight out of panama because we flew into Panama. I don't know what type of fucked system requires you to travel the same way out of a country as the way you do in, or if this lady was just stupid, but clearly we were just going to find a way around it. Obviously, we weren't going to waste the thousands of dollars we put into the San Blas islands tour. The obvious next step was to leave the line, buy a fully flexible plane ticket to Bogota, and return showing that we had just purchased the cheapest, most flexible flight money can buy. Being sick of it, and confirming the obvious play at hand, I asked if we would get in trouble to not fly out and instead take the boat. To which she replied "no". Although it was the answer I wanted, it frustrated me endlessly. How the fuck does that make sense. Why do I need to buy a plane ticket if I can catch a boat out. Anyway, I barely made it through security before I began the refund process. Temporarily costing me 440 USD was only part of the story. It was early, I was tired, and we were late. I just wanted to leave. We then had a stop over in El Salvador, but a flight delay then postponed my stress until we disembarked and reboarded for Panama. I was not having a good day. But, we did make it. Just in time, again. Though this should have been the end of my anger and stress, upon landing in Panama, it wasn't. Upon landing, they didn't even ask for any proof of exit. Let alone a fucking flight. To be fair, had they asked, we currently held three different forms of departure that we could offer. In case that didn't raise alarms to them, I would have just showed them all. Let them pick. I was so ready to rant to Caz and Corey who we were due to meet at the Airbnb, yet we arrived before them and I was forced to fester in my foul mood. This did give me a chance to try relax, have a shower, and put my feet up. When they arrived we took some time to catch up and share stories. When my rant was over, we grabbed some Ubereats and had some drinks and continued the catch up. We got fucked up and had a great time.Lue lisää