I arrived at the Avianca terminal two hours before my check out time. I had never flown with Avianca so I was curious to see how the paired up to the other standard airlines. Mr. Ed met me at the terminal and informed me that when checking in for his flight over the phone, the rep had told him that our return flight did not have enough of layover between flights so he switched Mr. Ed to direct flight back from Medellin at no cost. When checking in I requested this from the check in agent and he refused. Basically he was just being lazy, I should have pushed this but I thought that I could just call up and get the same deal. This would wind up biting me in the ass later on.

The flight itself was pretty pleasant. While we did feel like sardines going down since the plane was pretty packed. Still their entertainment system was top notch. The seats all came with a usb charger and you could select from the touch screen multiple movies, tv shows, music videos and even some games (although the games were nothing special, just trivia stuff)

We arrived an hour early and breezed through immigrations and customs. I will never understand the red/green light system I always encounter in Latin countries. Basically once you pick up your bags and head to customs your asked to push a button. If you get a red light then your bags will be checked. A green light means you can just go. Its completely random! This trip we both got green lights. We hit the money exchange which was a pain, the airport gave a crummy exchange rate.

I will never understand the red/green light system. Its completely random! You just answered your own question. As I understand it pushing the button basically just activates a counter that is pre-set to activate the red light every ___ number of people/pushes. Totally random, but apparently saving the world one push at a time.

I'm going to venture to guess that Latin American countries implemented this to restore confidence in travel from non Latin countries.

There is a reputation, although probably greatly exaggerated, in Latin America and any third world nation really of people having been set up as drug mules only to be "caught" by security personnel who were in on it. Or the opposite, the witting drug mule is let through.

The red light / green light I would guess ensures that they can't falsely catch or fail to catch certain people. Of course any machine is capable of being rigged, but most people have an unshakeable faith in bells and whistles, so "Come to Colombia, Malyasia etc. Our corruption is a thing of the past."