The great beauty of long term travel is that no plan is ever set in stone, being spontaneous and following your instinct is all part of the fun. But what happened next we could never have predicted.
For a start how does one end up flying from Panama City to Tenerife and then on the return flight land in Cartagena, Columbia. I’m not sure many people could claim to have done that, but air travel really has shrunk the world.
We were invited to Regs’s 50th birthday party in Tenerife, which had been planned years in advance by Leanne’s mam, long before we even confirmed that we were going travelling. Of course we agreed but didn’t realise we would be on the other side of the world so abruptly cancelled the plan. Two and half weeks before and we were still not going.
However, we just happened to be heading to Panama City, the biggest airport in the area. We had also figured that we would have to either fly or sail to Cartagena, Columbia, as there are no roads connecting the two countries, just 70 miles of dense jungle known as the Darien Gap. Both options would be expensive so why not entertain the idea of making an extra stop in between.
And that’s exactly what we did. Fly from Panama to Madrid, then Madrid to Tenerife. A journey from door to door of around 24 hours. Keeping with the Spanish theme of this trip it fits in well, except Tenerife was more English than England. Pints of beer, English breakfasts and lots of English people. It was like a holiday in a holiday and most importantly for us a chance to see family and friends. This was the ideal half way point break for us.
We kept it a surprise and when we turned up at the bar and asked Reg to get a round of drinks in, he was speechless and clearly shocked. It took him a few minutes to take it in but none the less got the beers in. And so started a great holiday, with plenty beers, food and good times.
The journey back to Columbia was huge, 2 buses, 3 flights and 1 taxi. We fitted this all into one day, perhaps the longest day we have ever lived considering the day was 30 hours long. We left the hotel at 12.30am to take two buses to the north side of Tenerife, however the clocks went back an hour so we arrived an hour early. We flew to Madrid, changed flights and set off to Panama City and arrived 24 hours after setting off from Tenerife. A few hours wait at the airport trying to stay awake and short flight later we arrived at Cartagena. After a short taxi ride we made it to the hotel just before midnight on the same day. Along the way we gained 6 hours on our day making it officially our longest day without sleep! Tired and with what appeared to be a lack of sleep induced hangover we fell into a deep sleep ready to take on our South American adventure!
