Tourist ends up in wrong country

[Judi Lynn]

Tourist ends up in wrong country
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A holidaymaker who booked a three-week trip said today that she ended up 1,300 miles away from her chosen destination after her travel agent mixed up her flights.

Samantha Lazzaris booked a trip of a lifetime to Costa Rica, in Central America, but ended up in the US territory of Puerto Rico instead.

Miss Lazzaris, 33, from Bristol, did not realise she was in Puerto Rico until she landed on the island last month and boarded a taxi, and the driver told her she was in the wrong country.

The holistic therapist told the Bristol Evening Post: "I asked the taxi driver to take me to this hotel I'd pre-booked, he looked in amazement, speechless, then laughed and said, 'This is not Costa Rica. It's Puerto Rico'.

More:
http://www.metro.co.uk/travel/article.html?Tourist_ends_up_in_wrong_country&in_article_id=528802&in_page_id=5

[rabs]

1. Recall a similar incident years ago

An elderly granny boarded a plane at the Barajas International Airport in Madrid. She was returning to her hometown of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, about an hour's flight time from Madrid

About 18 hours later, after stops in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, she disembarked in Santiago de Chile !!

She was intervied on TV and sweetly said, "I wondered why the flight was taking so long, and why my daughter was not here to greet me."

Meantime, her family back in Madrid and Santiago de Compostela were frantic. They had seen her get on a plane but she did not arrive at her destination. It was a total mystery until they got a call from Santiago de Chile.

The airline put her up in a hotel in Santiago de Chile until she could get a return flight back to Madrid. I seem to recall that it was either Iberia or LAN Chile airlines.

[roody]

2. I am going to be hosting a friend of a Costa Rican friend, a woman from

Spain, because she realized that she accidentally bought a ticket to San Jose, California, instead of San Jose, Costa Rica.