Saturday 10 August 2019.
Highlights: No transit driver and initially no hotel room, finally arriving in Colombia!

Most of the night I found myself waking up every time I moved during my sleep due to a sore neck which was such a pain but by mid-morning it had remitted quite a lot so hopefully will be fully gone by the time the tour starts tomorrow.

The Hyatt Regency DFW is a very good airport hotel, the room was nice and the bed comfortable, that price was fair for last minute booking ($203 AUD), they had flight departure boards you could monitor (just like they have at the airport itself) but best of all is the free airport shuttle left every 20 minutes. Not a bad last minute addition to the trip due to the delayed Sydney to Dallas flight.

The hotel shuttle dropped my off at Terminal A which is a mixture of domestic and international flights for American Airlines with no other airlines using this terminal. The check in area was basically empty but I made a mistake at security leaving my kindle in my daypack causing a 15 minute delay. My Qantas Gold (but coming up as Platinum) membership status allowed me access to the American Airlines Dallas Admirals Club (Terminal A) – review here.

The 5+ hour flight to Bogotá was very nice. Starting with utilising priority boarding (ensuring I had overhead bin space) and then having extra leg room in Main Cabin Extra zone followed by an adequate meal and a good entertainment system meant plus on arrival my bag was one of the first out meant this was good way to get to Bogotá – American Airlines Dallas to Bogotá flight – review here.

The main memory of today however come once I cleared Customs. First my booked transit driver didn’t show up resulting in my needing to use a local taxi driver at midnight. This turned out to be fine but still not great at the time. Then when getting to my hotel (Hotel Regina) they didn’t have a single room for me. A call to my tour leader Miguel and eventually they decided to put me in another nearby hotel which is part of the same hotel group. This meant another taxi ride but paid by the hotel. Eventually at 1.30 am I was in Hotel Dann which actually appeared to better.

Miguel organised for the tour group to pick me up at 8.30 am tomorrow. Mistakes occur but it’s how you recover from then that shows the real quality of a company and this was a good recovery.