By Neville Cole

I was cursing myself for the hundredth time for not paying more attention in Spanish class, when the woman behind me finally interrupted my hopeless attempt to mime the phrase “I need to get to La Paz.”
“She is asking whether you want to say here in Bogata or go to Lima tonight and wait there for a flight to La Paz on Thursday.”
“No,” I repeated anxiously. “I have to get to La Paz tonight. I have a video crew waiting for me in Bolivia. We start shooting Thursday. I have to get to Lima by 9pm to make my connecting flight.” The woman didn’t even bother translating me; the Avianca rep already had an answer.
“There is no flight. It is not our fault.”
“Then whose fault is it?” I asked.
The Avianca rep understood this question and had a very practiced answer.
“It is not Avianca’s fault. It is the airport’s fault.” She then began talking again to the woman behind me in Spanish.

“She says: You stay here tonight and leave in the morning or you go to Lima tonight and wait there for flight. It is the only way to La Paz.” The rep spoke again.

“She also say they cannot pay for any hotel.”
“There are no other flights?”
“No. There are no flights.”
I don’t give up easily; but three hours at various airline counters trying work out transportation details while stretching my 200-word caveman-like Spanish vocabulary way beyond breaking point was more than enough to make me raise a white flag. At least I knew of a decent hotel in Bogata. At least I knew I could get there in broad daylight and get a good night’s sleep for a change. I certainly didn’t fancy another midnight taxi ride through a South America capital with a driver determined to take me to “a much better good hotel” or “a club to meet some very pretty girl.”
“I’ll stay here and fly out tomorrow,” I resigned. “But can you find my bag?”
“Follow me.” The Avianca rep took off like a shot obviously delighted to be one step closer to getting rid of me.
I chased her through the terminal at close to a jog and just happened to notice a departure board that clearly showed a flight for Lima, Peru leaving at 4:58pm.
I grabbed the rep by the sleeve almost jerking her off her feet in the process. She let out a sharp yelp but I blundered on gesturing wildly at the board and blurting: “Won’t that flight get me to Lima before nine? Can’t I can still get to La Paz tonight?”
“That’s not Avianca, that’s TACA.”
“But it will get me there, right?”
“Avianca will not pay. It is not our fault”
“I’ll buy a ticket.” The rep huffed and muttered for a moment.
“Ok. Follow me.”
As we galloped toward the TACA counter I prayed a profane little prayer. “Please God, or whomever or whatever… Let there just be just one bloody seat on this plane and get me the fuck out of Colombia!”
My prayer was answered. There was one seat left and in first class, no less. The Avianca rep left me to buy my ticket and dashed off to find my missing bag. She need not have hurried as paperwork in South America in never a speedy process. I watched and waited and occasionally answered questions for the next 30 minutes as the TACA rep put pen to paper to not only fill out my ticket by hand but check and double check the 15 lines of calculations it took him to work out the price of my ticket. Just when I thought he was done, he called over his supervisor to check and double check his notes and calculations. I began to wonder whose fault it would be if I missed my flight because of a tricky ticketing situation.
My patience was pushed to the limit but I finally got my golden ticket and just as I swore “Shit! Where the hell is my bag?” the Avianca rep tossed it up on to the scale.
“Goodbye,” she said as I gathered my boarding pass. “Good luck with the video.”
“Thanks,” I said, totally flustered and with little sincerity.
I should have been more grateful, I suppose. After all, all I had to do now was clear customs in 25 minutes and I would be on my flight to Lima and still make my connection to La Paz and get in just in time to start the shoot first thing in the morning. Everything was going according to plan.
I ran through the terminal and glanced at a billboard that drew one final, bitter smile. “Colombia,” it read, “the only risk is wanting to stay.”
“Yeah, right…” I laughed.
My joy was fleeting and that all too familiar sinking feeling returned as I fell into line at security. Machine gun toting soldiers were forcing each and every passenger to open their bags and shuffle the contents around. There was no way I would get through all this in 25 minutes. “So close and yet so far” I began to moan. I was about to lose it for real when a sharp finger jabbed me in the shoulder.
“Follow me.” The Avianca rep took off toward the gate and I rushed right after her. A blank-faced soldier looked up momentarily as we appeared and, after only the slightest nod from the rep, waved me through with sweep of his gun.
“Muchas gracias,” I said to the suddenly gloriously beautiful Avianca rep, “por… er… everything, ah… todo.”
“Go,” she said with a Mona Lisa smile. “You will miss your flight.”
“…but that would not be your fault,” I said turning to leave.
“No,” she laughed. “It would be the airport’s fault.”
It’s always the someone or something else’s fault in South America.