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It all started on July 30th at 3:30am when I get this phone call:

Me: “He…mfff…llo…bmgrrr?”
Cab driver: “Hello are you Mr. Jaramillo? I´m the cab driver and I´m waiting for you outside your house”
Me: “Dude! I asked for a cab for July 31st! You came 24 hours too soon!”
Cab driver: “Oh… errr.. crap!… sorry sir. I will cancel this service then”
Me: “No problem, just make sure you pick me up tomorrow at this time. Thanks.”

Ok that wasn´t really the start of the trip, but it was a funny story. By the way, if you ever need a great cab driver in Austin let me know and I will give you Fernando´s phone number.

It all REALLY started on July 31st at 3:30am when I get a phone call from my cab driver Fernando and he takes me to the airport. I got there at 4:15am and there was no line. Check-in and passing security was extremely fast. My first plane was Austin-Atlanta departing at 5:30am. In Atlanta I had a Donut and orange juice for breakfast and then at 10:30am took a plane from Atlanta to Miami. I got to Miami at 12:30pm and had pizza for lunch. In the past being at the Miami airport has been a nightmare bearable only because you can buy beer and walk around the airport with it, so I had one Heiniken for lunch, and then a Pacifico but I have to say that this time the airport wasn´t as crazy as other times.

Finally we got in the plane to fly to Medellín. The plane had some decorations related to the Feria de las flores which is the city festival celebrated once a year in early August. But that wasn´t all: the Avianca crew in charge of the flight had a few surprises for us the passengers. First they played Me voy para Medellín by El Combo de las Estrellas and then played La tierra by Ekhymosis (rock band from Medellín that Juanes used to be part of). Then they announced that Buchanan´s was sponsoring the fun factor in our trip, so they did a raffle and gave away t-shirts and a bottle of scotch and then gave scotch to all the passangers. Off course I had mine on the rocks. But the best thing came when we were about to land: instead of landing directly at the Jose Maria Cordoba airport located 30 minutes from Medellín when you usually don´t get to see the city, the pilot fluflew over Medellín for about 15 minutes at a not-very-high altitude where you could see all the main city landmarks like the Coltejer building, the Atanasio Girardot stadium, the old airport, the pueblito paisa, etc… it was a blast and at this point we were all singing, drinking, screaming, clapping! It was like being on a flying Chiva.

Anyway, that last part of the trip was a blast, and then seeing my family was even better. We stopped at Rancherito and had a picada and finally came home. I can´t wait to see what is next, but I´m having sancocho for lunch today!