Well, That Sucked. (Or, We Finally Made It To Panama!)

We finally made it to Panama City, Panama!

But we almost didn’t.

As our Facebook page followers were cryptically warned, the last couple of days of travel had their problems. And they almost completely blew up our plans for visiting Panama.

But thanks to the fine work of the United States Embassy and a love hotel, we avoided violating Ecuadorian immigration law. Not only that, but we were able to get to Panama only 6.5 hours behind schedule!

Yes, there is a story to tell.

So What Happened?

“I’m not stupid often, but when I am the results are spectacular!”

Mark (as said to his wife, 12 hours after losing his passport)

That quote pretty much sets the tone for this entire post.

At 11 pm we were in the process of being dropped off at the Aeropuerto Internacional Mariscal Sucre outside of Quito, Ecuador.

As a side note, it was 48 hours before our 90-day tourist visa expired.

I still was in our Uber car in the dark, blindly fishing through my travel sling bag for tip money for the driver while he and Rhonda were outside preparing to unload our luggage.

In my rush, apparently, my passport wallet popped out of my bag without me noticing and left with our Uber into the night (along with $30 USD and 1 credit card).

This left us with no way to leave Ecuador, with a tourist visa deadline looming.

So here is the play-by-play of what happened over the next twelve hours.

First, Panic and Reaction

We brought our luggage into the airport, blissfully ignorant that my passport was not on my person. We put them off to the side and decided to use the restrooms before entering the airport departure moshpit.

And while waiting for Rhonda’s turn, that is when I noticed my passport was gone.

Really?

This sort of thing only happens to other travelers. Stupid travelers.

Well, color me stupid.

After gathering my senses, the first thing I did was use the Uber app to contact our driver.

No luck.

His number was “not in service” so I had to resort to filling out a short app form indicating that my passport was lost, probably in his car. The autoreply told me that Uber would contact them, but I might not receive a reply for 24 hours.

That told me everything I needed to know about my situation.

Second, Getting Serious About Not Breaking the Law

It was after midnight at this point. And believe it or not, my biggest concern was not missing our flight as that was a given.

It was that our tourist visa was almost expired.

And we only had between 24 and 48 hours left on it, by my recollection. Needless to say, we REALLY didn’t want to find out what the consequences of traveling on an expired visa were in Ecuador, as it can be extremely serious in some parts of the world.

Since getting a passport in the USA usually takes MONTHS, you can appreciate my concern about delaying our time in Ecuador.

A number of thoughts were going through my head at this point. But I decided to first reach out to our local friend (and very experienced tour/travel guide) Xime to let her know what was happening since we just saw each other a couple of hours before.

She gave lots of useful advice, but the most important one was the screenshot of the emergency contact numbers for the United States Embassy in Quito.

I gave them a call, and since it was well after business hours, I used the “break glass only in extreme emergency” selection on their phone menu to talk to a person.

Thankfully I was routed to a representative who took down my information and gave us assistance.

She provided links to information on what to do in situations like this and advised me to send an email to the embassy asking for an immediate appointment at 8 am that morning (a Monday) for a replacement emergency passport. That seemed a little silly to me considering I knew that no one would be able to answer in time, but it turns out that having a paper trail is important!

So by this point, it was clear we would have to go back to Quito to visit the United States Embassy when it opened at 8 am on Monday, which was 8 hours in the future.

Third, Dealing With Our Flight Tickets

“Thankfully”, our flight still hadn’t left (it was around 1 am at this point), so I still had time to make lemons out of lemonade regarding our tickets.

You might recall from our United Airlines Excursionist Travel Hack that we were able to purchase our tickets from Ecuador to Panama as part of our ridiculously cheap Year-1 Travel Plan flight itinerary. But we paid for these tickets with credit card points, so I wasn’t sure how that would affect things.

I called United Airlines customer service, and after an extended interaction, I was informed that the best they could do was cancel our tickets and submit a petition for us to be reimbursed the United Airlines reward points we used to purchase the tickets.

If this were an act of God situation, we would have likely been reimbursed on the spot.

But since this was a “stupid traveler” situation, a petition needed to be filed and a decision made by United Airlines at some point in the future.

And booking a new flight at that time made no sense as we had no idea how long our passport situation would play out.

Now the United representative was very kind and did not phrase my situation rudely the way I did. She even went up several chains of command to help because she knew that we were in a potentially precarious situation.

But it was what it was. The representative was very kind, so I thanked her.

We hope that the travel gods smile kindly on our points reimbursement decision! But to be honest, it wasn’t very many points anyway (the tickets were a steal), so we won’t be heartbroken if things fall through.

[UPDATE: We got our 12,000 points back! Thanks United Airlines!]

PRO TIP: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be kind to airline representatives. Even when you think your world is coming to an end. They can sometimes make magic happen for you when you need it, or make your life a living hell. We once got a surprise first-class flight upgrade to Europe just by being nice to a ticket window attendant!

Fourth, Making a Rendezvous at a Love Hotel

So our plan at this point was clear.

Be at the United States Embassy in Quito by 8 am and beg for help.

But logistically, there were issues we had to figure out.

We decided to find a place to rest near the embassy, rather than take advantage of Xime’s hospitality. This was because Quito is a really big city with terrible traffic! And staying near the airport was a bad idea because it is quite a distance away from the embassy.

So we consulted Google Maps for lodging options, and there were surprisingly few. I also got the impression that the embassy was not in the best part of Quito.

But I did find one “hotel” with good ratings near the embassy. So we grabbed a taxi ($25 USD fare) and went for it, hoping that we could drop in and spontaneously get a room at 3 am.

No luck.

When we arrived the security gate was closed, which is a normal thing at that hour. But no one responded to their call button despite multiple attempts.

I also should point out that the area of town we were in was a little rough.

The taxi driver was nice (probably noting the condition of the neighborhood we were in) and took us to a place around the block that looked like it had 24-hour service. The reviews were sketchy (3 stars), but we were not doing to do better and still be within walking distance of the embassy!

We arrived at the hostel at 3 am and the gate was closed just like the last location. But when I rang the buzzer a young man opened a face gate (like you see in seedy speakeasies in the movies) and asked what I needed.

It turns out they had a room and, for $50 USD cash, we had a place to stay for a couple of nights!

We now had a base of operations to think and strategize.

Like the neighborhood, the establishment (and room) was a little rough but safe. And it had its own bathroom, so it would do.

I thought it interesting that the room mattress was lined with plastic and that there was an industrial-sized paper towel dispenser next to the bed. But we were tired and paid it no mind.

When the sun came up in the morning (we didn’t sleep at all) I noticed that on our door was a list of amenities that the clients could expect, with one being “discretion”.

We totally booked a room in a love hotel!

Fifth, Assaulting the United States Embassy in Quito

At this point, we were running on fumes.

Neither of us had slept or showered for over 2 days!

But as directed, we walked the 1 km distance to the embassy and there was already a long line of people waiting to get service. They all appeared to be Ecuadorian locals waiting to have USA visa issues addressed.

When looking at the signs around the guarded embassy entrance, I noticed a small one that said if you were a United States citizen, tell security and you will be helped separately.

So we did.

And amazingly, we were fast-tracked to the front of the line, while officials inside the secured building were notified about our situation.

At that exact time (completely unrelated to our presence at the embassy), I received a call from an embassy representative on my cell phone. Apparently, my call to the embassy that evening from the airport produced results, and they reached out to me.

During our conversation, the representative informed me that I needed to bring in passport photos for them to issue me a new emergency passport. But they were happy to do so and would help me immediately!

Were it not for that call, I would have entered the embassy completely unprepared and wasted a lot of time.

Thankfully the photos were easy to get, and several stores were providing them for visas right next door. So we left and paid the $5 USD for 6 passport photos of my sleep-deprived face.

When we returned to the embassy, security whisked us inside. We went through metal detectors, and past lines of hundreds of waiting locals wondering how we were getting fast-tracked.

We were finally placed inside a single office with a sign overhead that read “USA Citizens”.

We waited there and eventually met multiple staff members who helped us with our problem. We filled out several forms, provided passport photos, and paid the fees ($165 USD in total).

We had been at the embassy for about 90 minutes at this point, so it was about 9:30 am.

We were then asked to wait in the main seating area where visa applications were being handled for Ecuadorian citizens.

And 20 minutes later we were presented with my shiny new emergency passport!

In purple no less.

The catch is that it is only valid for 1 year.

But if I turn it in before it expires to get a new 10-year USA passport back home, my new passport will be 100% free! Which is a good thing as this emergency passport cost a total of $170 USD!

So to summarize, from start to finish I received a new internationally recognized USA emergency passport in about two hours. TWO HOURS!

We were so impressed with the attention and care everyone in the United States Embassy office gave us, from local security guards to non-local officials with American accents.

We were literally treated like VIPs.

I know it is easy to beat up the United States government and its bureaucracy nowadays, but we were shocked about how well we were treated and how smoothly they handled our problems. Had it not gone so well, we would have been forced to pursue a visa extension in Ecuador.

And since we only had 24 hours left until our visa ran out, who knows if we would have been seen in time before it expired.

Consider that the next time you are tempted to reflexively bash the US government.

Finally, Off to Panama City, Panama

With my shiny new passport in hand, we walked back to our love hotel to regroup and plan.

It was around 10:30 am at this point. We were completely exhausted, but happy that we now had the means to exit the country!

But we were really not interested in spending another night in our love hotel if possible. So we checked out how much tickets to Panama City, Panama would cost.

Much to our surprise, we found one-way tickets on Copa Airlines leaving at 2:50 pm THE SAME DAY! Not only that, but the tickets were direct to Panama City, which was a major improvement over our canceled tickets.

At $240 USD each, they weren’t exactly cheap. But they weren’t deal breakers either. And according to Google Flights, we didn’t pay any more than had we paid for those tickets months in advance.

The timetable for us to leave Ecuador was now extremely short! So we packed our things, bid our farewell to the love hotel attendants, snagged an Uber, and went to the airport!

We arrived at the airport at around noon, with plenty of time to check in.

And we made it through security, boarded the airplane, and landed in Panama City, Panama without any problems.

We landed just before 5 pm. Only 6.5 hours later than originally planned!

An Expensive Mistake

So everything had a happy ending.

We are now safely in our shared short-term Panama City Airbnb, and we didn’t miss any of our reserved nights because we got here so quickly.

But boy, did we spend a lot of extra money dealing with this crisis.

Here is the breakdown:

• 2 flights to Panama City = $480 USD
• 2 extra taxi rides to/from the airport = $50 USD
• 2 paid nights in the love hotel = $50 USD
• New emergency passport (with photos) = $170 USD
• Lost passport wallet cash = $30 USD
• TOTAL COST = $780 USD

Ouch. Lesson learned.

We didn’t forget food expenses, as we didn’t eat during the entire affair.

And then there is the added cost of having to come back to the USA a little earlier than intended to get a new “real” USA passport that is valid for 10 years.

Unless I find a workaround.

[UPDATE: The US Embassy in Panama City, Panama was able to issue me a new 10-year USA passport, at a speed much quicker than if I were back in the USA – 3 weeks! Read our posts describing that sequence of events HERE.]

But that is OK.

We are still completing the entirety of our Year 1 travel plan, but are just coming back to visit a little earlier than expected. And then we’ll be off again!

We hope you enjoyed our tale of woe.

Take home message: When in transit, staple your passport to your forehead.

Until next time…

Thanks for reading!

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