A very loud bell was ringing in the jetway as we boarded. It was steady and piercing, then intermittent. Finally just occasional until it finally stopped. We were sure Ashton Kutchure was about to show up, but he didn't. Probably best.
Night had fallen and it looked clear after the rain earlier today.
LA looks better at night, I think.
As the sun rose Five hours later, it looked clear, but at 35,000 feet, it usually does.
A blanket of clouds with some imbedded storms coverd the ground below.
Panamá has an impressive skyline that I never noticed on previous trips. Cool.
It looked hot and humid outside, but we would only see the inside of the air conditioned terminal before boarding our connecting flight to Cali.
In less than an hour, we are climbing in a smaller jet with only a few passengers bound for Colombia and there was some slight turbulence as we climbed through the morning cumulus clouds already forming. As we made our approach an hour later, we hit some moderate to severe turbulence and the passengers responded with shrieks and called out to Mother Mary, and one or two of the Trinity for suport. Now that's turbulence!
It was awesome. The flight crew was still chatting about it as we all cleared customs. Juho and I were as well.
As we exchanged some currency I saw our driver Noberto waiting just ouside and pointed to my watch indicating a few minutes more, and he smiled back saying, "No problema."
It was a 2.5 hour drive but Noberto took great care of us in his air conditioned pickup and stopped at a fruit stand along the way. A local woman prepared a fresh pineapple and put it into a plastic bag. We put on the plastic gloves she gave us and proceeded to feel like we were in fruit heaven as we bit into the golden sweet discs. Ahhhhhh.
We reached the hotel at around 2:30 local time. The sky was awesome looking and we saw a pilot or two flying above. It's on! We checked in, settled in a bit and later walked down to town to set up our phones with local SIM cards and get dinner and supplies. A half rotisserie chicken and a pitcher of mango pineapple juice were all we needed to call it a night as we walked back up to the hotel. Perfect.
I decorated my room a little with this sweet card from my youngest who told me to wait to open it when I got on the bus (but not before). Went to bed around 10:00pm. Woke up around 6:30. Just right.
I could hear the pool guy scooting around with his supplies and took a shot of the morning sky. Looks like a perfect day ahead. We will prepare for the arrival of our first group on the 5th. We need to be ready to fly every day for each group until the following group arrives, it has already been a great season here with two comps finishing up just ahead of my arrival. It has been somewhat drier here this year, which means stronger thermals, and higher cloudbase than usual. Looking good.
Ciao para ahora, (bye for now).
MartÃn
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