Atlanta Airport info - coronavirus
Travels - Queen of Trades; Travel and Photography
2020-03-16 13:25 by Sarah Denninger
in Travel/Stories/Tips , 91 references Ignore this thread
Atlanta Airport info - coronavirus
 

I'm home and it feels so good. I even slept a good twelve hours in my own bed because I think my body was just ready to crash. Now I bet some of you are wondering what happened on my way home. To be honest it was super simple. In Bogota, there were people around but it seemed to be pretty normal. We had masks everywhere but we expected that. The only trouble was not knowing if those people were actually sick or if they were just trying to protect themselves. It honestly was difficult to know. When we went to check our bags in we asked the lady to cancel our flight to New Orleans. We were supposed to fly from Bogota to Atlanta, have a seven-hour layover, and then fly to New Orleans. My friend and I were both unsure about staying in Atlanta. We had heard that the airport was terrible and just swarmed with people getting home. So to avoid that we decided to go ahead and cancel the next flight entirely. 

With time to spare in the airport, we went ahead and walked around in the shops and bought last-minute gifts. I wanted to get my Dad some extra stuff, get my boyfriend something and just enjoy the browsing. We had been on nine our bus overnight to get to the airport and when we got through customs and everything we had two hours to spare. So browsing, washing up and just enjoying the last few hours in Colombia was a necessary thing to avoid boredom. 

After a few hours, we boarded our flight and took a look around. It was crowded with all kinds of people (even a cat!) and we were taken aback by how many people were on the plane. We were even sure that we got upgraded to a bigger plane because of the number of people we had. It was pretty serious, seeing all of this happening. 

Fast forward about four hours and we were on the ground, off the plane and walking to the customs guys. Looking around the airport was dead. Nobody was there. we walked about a mile and most of the airport was closed off to prevent people from wandering around. We finally get up to the last part of customs where we have claim items and be asked questions by an officer. I was expecting quite a lot of questions so I prepared myself mentally. When It was my turn I walked up to the officer, smiled and handed him my passport with a friendly "Hello". He asked me how I was and I told him I was doing good. 

He then proceeded with the following. 

"Where do you live?"

"Florida"

"How long were you in Colombia for?"

"10 days"

"Were you traveling with anybody during this time?"

"My friend ____"

"Just you two?"

"Yes Sir"


"Why were you in Colombia?"

"To see things...basically just to visit and take a small vacation"

"Have you been to China, Europe, or African Countries?"

"No Sir"

"Alright have a nice day"

That's it. No screening, no special instructions, nothing. To be honest I was expecting a 50/50 chance of being screened or quarantined but at the same time, I knew from my last two trips that that was very slim and as I turned out I was right. I wasn't asked a lot of questions and we were just waved through. So if you were wondering what they are doing in the biggest airport around...well there you go. Not much. 

So I am home, I don't know if I have the virus but we will find out in two weeks time. For now, I'm just going to enjoy life and just take things as they are. This virus has everyone freaking out and even though some of that is expected I also know that we will be ok. We are in times where something like this has never happened before but we will get through this. Just breathe. It really will be ok. 

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