Ottawa Air­port, 6am

The trip started fine. We got up at 5:30am and Feng’s par­ents drove us to the Ottawa air­port for our first leg of the trip. The weather was really bad, bliz­zard and heavy snow. But Cana­dian air­ports are used to extreme weather con­di­tions and we took off just fine… after deic­ing the plane.

We had three hours to spend in Toronto before board­ing our Newark flight. We hung out at Pear­sons and I even got through the U.S immi­gra­tion, done in Canada for some rea­sons, with­out get­ting picked on. We were sup­posed to board the 12:25 flight, except there was def­i­nitely no plane at the gate. Appar­ently, it was stuck some­where due to “adverse win­ter con­di­tions”. We finally boarded an hour later, with much relief. Except that this time, we were soon told that the plane couldn’t take off due to “secu­rity prob­lems at Newark”. We waited in the plane for an hour, then two. The pilot peri­od­i­cally informed us that he was “nego­ti­at­ing” with Newark, but at 3:30, Feng and I under­stood we had missed our 5:00pm Newark Panama flight. Crap.

Being grounded on the tar­mac in a really small plane isn’t fun. It’s hot, claus­tro­pho­bic, and frus­trat­ing. Not to men­tion the lack of leg room or basic things, like water. The pas­sen­gers were very patient but we all sighted with relief when we finally took off… at 4:30.

We finally arrived in Newark at 6:00. Obvi­ously, we had missed our Panama flight but we were also con­cerned with our bag, which had been checked to Panama directly, and with where we were going to sleep. We rushed to the Air Canada counter. The flight had indeed left with­out us and Air Canada couldn’t offer us accom­mo­da­tion vouch­ers because the plane had been delayed due to the weather con­di­tions. “But we were told it was a secu­rity prob­lem!”, I argued. The employee went to check. “Yes, actu­ally, you are right. But Air Canada can not be held for respon­si­ble for air traf­fic prob­lems”. Great, thanks for your help.

We then tried to locate our back­packs but appar­ently, it wasn’t Air Canada’s prob­lem either. An hour later, we finally found them. On the bright side, it was really hot in Newark and we didn’t miss our win­ter gear (because we hadn’t packed any­thing warm). We checked in in an hotel nearby the air­port and spent the rest of the night relaxing.

Wednes­day, take two. The flight was on time and we arrived in Panama at 11:00 pm. The migración started to pick on Feng’s pass­port: “un Chino con un pas­aporte Cana­di­ense” was appar­ently new to them. I insisted that Feng was indeed born in China, but had been in Canada for­ever. Didn’t quite work and they took his pass­port to “make a copy”. Now it’s not that I don’t trust offi­cials, but I really didn’t see why they were pick­ing on us… and I don’t like peo­ple who take pass­ports away. We waited anx­iously for half an hour and the pass­port was brought back to us. Phew.

We asked a taxi to take us to Hotel Vol­can, where we had stayed in 2002. The place is old and quite run down but since we hadn’t booked a room any­where and that it was close to 1:00am, we couldn’t afford to be picky. Hotel Vol­can was still there, the room tiny and stuffy, but safe. I took a shower and relaxed… Took me a while to get used to the cold water but I found it sooth­ing. I did some quick laun­dry and lay on the bed. Closed my eyes.

It’s a dif­fer­ent world here. Palm trees and coconuts, food stalls in the streets, peo­ple hang­ing out chat­ting at 3:00am, mil­i­tary and policía with machine guns at every cor­ner, tinted win­dows and bul­let proof doors… We are dif­fer­ent peo­ple too. Long gone is the teacher and the French in me. We trust no one but our­selves and yet we find the world absolutely beautiful.

It’s 30C and we are in Panama. What’s to com­plain about?

Related arti­cles:

1. On The Road Again
2. Hol­ly­wood
3. Home, Home Again
4. Stuck In A Moment
5. Flight 447 Tragedy