Author archive
15 August 2022
With decent sleep inflight, even though upright, I felt very good upon arrival in Auckland at 0600, only 15 mins late. Disembarking some 20 mins later, I promptly made my way to the immigration hall. Today, the automated kiosks were turning many people away to the manual counters. After a while, there were no queues […]
13 August 2022
Aircraft boneyard at Victorville Today we make a day-trip to Victorville before I hopefully fly back to New Zealand. Victorville had been on the plan all along, with us meant to fly from Colombia to Las Vegas originally. Victorville would be a stop on the drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. But due to […]
12 August 2022
With 2h time difference from Bogota, I woke around 0530 but stayed in bed till about 0600. I had plenty of my mind with my upcoming flight on standby, looking up the passenger loads over the next few days. I made up my mind to fly tomorrow night instead of 2 days later on 15 […]
11 August 2022
Flying to Medellin Having slept with the aid of half a pill last night around 2030, I was up at 0230 but tried to sleep again. After 0330 I gave up and did things on my phone until the alarm went off at 0430. It was time for us to leave South America for North […]
10 August 2022
Cerro Nutibara After breakfast at the hotel courtyard, we booked a taxi for tomorrow morning’s early departure. We headed out about 0945 for our only day of sightseeing in Medellin. Our stay had been cut short by numerous flight issues. Our first stop was Pueblita Paisa on top of Cerro Nutibara. This is a mini […]
9 August 2022
Above: On board the Viva Air A320, the seats were plastic shells with padding! After a day of relaxation and planning for future travel, we left our lovely mini-resort for Santa Marta airport around 1130. The ride took about 90 mins, getting to the small beach-side airport (with views) around 1300. We managed to bagdrop […]
7 August 2022
We had both slept so well through the night. I woke around 0630 and next minute, it was 0800. The poolside breakfast was good but as soon as we returned to our room, it started drizzling and it later became light rain that would make any activity undesirable. Around 1100, we walked along the grey […]
6 August 2022
With a bus to Santa Marta at 0930 departing from a station 45 mins away, we took breakfast at the earliest possible time of 0730. Being the first there, we were served immediately and were out within 25 mins. The first taxi driver we found offered a good honest price of COP30K. Traffic was bad […]
5 August 2022
Largest fortress in Latin America I must have needed a lot of sleep to help me get over the light symptoms of whatever I’ve got. Despite having slept early, we didn’t get up till around 0800. After breakfast, we left around 1000 for a short walk across the water to Castillo de San Felipe de […]
4 August 2022
Walking tour of old city The power went off at breakfast this morning. The receptionist later showed me a notice saying that there would be no power till the evening and that water supply would also be interrupted for the upper levels also due to no power to the water pump. Well, luckily for us, […]