Rewind: Leaving Colombia

Perhaps this blog title would make a good movie title, like Out of Africa or something. And our story of leaving Colombia has made for a good tale as well.

After a beautiful 24 hours in the Isla Rosario National Park, we boated back to Cartagena in a launch just big enough to not capsize in the rough and tumble open waters. We stalled once and the boat captain duly got us going again.

A quick souvenir-buying stop in Cartagena and off we went to the airport for our flight back to San Jose, with a stop in Panama City. In San Jose, we would be meeting up with our friends the Discenzas to go to Costa Rica's spectacular Osa Peninsula.

The check in clerk at COPA Airlines took our passports, issued our boarding passes and then asked just one question: "May I see your yellow immunization cards that show your Yellow Fever vaccinations?"

"Huh?"

Turns out that Costa Rica passed a law in 2009 requiring all visitors to Colombia returning to Costa Rica to have a Yellow Fever immunization. This was the first we had heard of it. After much back and forth and much pleading, the Copa clerk would not yield. It seemed that our choices were to get a shot and then remain ten days more in Colombia while the vaccination took full effect or...well, that was all she really said we could do.

At last, however, she agreed that we could fly to Panama City since Panama did not have the same requirements. She then, rather incongruously, offered to merely change our flight from Panama to Costa Rica by one day and suggested that it would be perfectly acceptable to fly the very next day from Panama to Costa Rica. While this sounded promising, it didn't exactly make sense and, fortunately, we did not take her offer, which would have cost $575 in change fees and, we found out later, indeed would not have worked.

Instead, we boarded our flight to Panama. As we flew, we conjured the plan of landing in Panama, racing through immigration and getting a Panamanian entry stamp, then running to get new boarding passes in the hope that because we were now officially in Panama, and not in Yellow Fever ridden Colombia (by the way, it's not...), we might get through. This was essentially a variation on the plan offered up by the Copa clerk, except that we would not wait even on day. We would just try to board the flight as if we had been in Panama all the time, not just for five minutes.

So we hustled. A great immigration attendant in Panama quickly and courteously got us into the country. We had speedy bag retrieval. Kids performing at top level--as a side note, our kids have become terrific travelers. Baker and Riley, in particular, can get their shoes off, backpacks onto the conveyor belt, metallic items placed just so, assist with Tae, gather their things, put everything back on, and keep moving down the concourse in seconds flat.

It was all working for us. Even when we arrived back at the COPA desk.

"Hi," I said with a smile and in lovely Spanish. "Here we are in Panama." I paused to emphasize our location as being not in Colombia. "We are late for our flight to San Jose. Can we still make it or do you have another flight?"

The clerk said we were too late but that there was another flight in a couple hours that we could make and not pay any change fee. Yes! She took our passports, issued our boarding passes and asked one question: "Can I see proof of your Yellow Fever immunizations?"

"Huh?"

"My computer says you were just in Colombia and you need...yadda yadda yadda." You know the story.

So, we were again turned around. One thing we have learned, however, through Tara's Canadian citizenship and her US residency, and through the experience of a good friend in the States who is a Bolivian citizen, is that immigration services are consistent on just one principle: inconsistency.

The COPA clerk made a few calls and then explained: The Costa Rican authorities at the airport will be real sticklers about the Yellow Fever immunizations. But, if you drive across from Panama, nobody will ask about it.

And, there was our solution. We found a hotel for the night in Panama City and, in the morning, hopped a 45 minute domestic flight to David, a medium sized city in the north of Panama, an hour from the Costa Rican border. From David, we caught a cab to the border. I had called our hotel in Osa from Panama City and they arranged a taxi to meet us on the CR side of the border. So, we walked across the border, the Costa Rican immigration officials slammed their welcome stamps into our passports directly beside the Colombian exit stamps (no kidding!) and we were back home in Costa Rica and on our way to the next adventure.