Heading Home from Panama City

Our flight from Panama City to Houston left at 2:45 pm, so we didn’t need to get up early, which was a really fun (and unusual for us) way to start the travel day. We had a relaxing morning in the hotel and then wandered around looking for a post office to mail some postcards. We were able to find a post office after a few wrong turns and one accidental visit to a bank.

The lobby of our hotel. They put the tree up about halfway through our stay.

After checking out of the hotel, we walked a block away from the hotel with our bags and hailed a cab. We were a little worried that going all the way out to the airport would not be something the cab drivers were interested in doing based on our bad luck the day before.  A cab stopped immediately, though, and the driver was more than happy to take us to the airport. I think we offered $25, and he agreed to that price right away (this included the tolls). The traffic leaving the city was terrible, the worst we had seen during our time there. It took at least 25-30 minutes just to get to the highway. The cab driver was kind and spoke English so we chatted with him a little. He was also probably the craziest driver we had, which made those 45 minutes with him a little nerve-racking. At one point he pulled into a gas station, never turned off the car, gave the gas clerk $3 (gas is slightly more expensive in Panama than in the states and they use US dollars so this did not buy very much gas) and the second the clerk put down the gas pump, we sped out of there hitting the street going at least 25 mph… it was crazy. Once we got to the highway, the rest of the drive was smooth, quick and most importantly uneventful. 

Security at the airport went quickly without long lines or problems. We grabbed some lunch and a bottle of water and had thirty minutes or so to burn before boarding. A second security screening was set up at our gate. (I assume this is something that is chosen randomly and not something that occurs for every flight.) They took everything out of our bags, went through everything, unfolded everything AND made us throw away the water bottle we literally just purchased at the store across from the gate. Oh well. We sat together on the flight, always a bonus, and easily caught our flight to Salt Lake City from Houston.

Such a great trip!

A nice sunset before landing in Houston