My trip back from Belize took about 24 hours longer than expected, but that wasn’t such a bad thing. In fact, in a way it made me feel good about people.

The trip started out great — even ahead of schedule! For a 9am puddle-jumper from Ambergris Caye to Belize City, I showed up an hour early. (These travel habits are pretty ingrained.) So I was a bit surprised when I arrived at 8am, and they said the flight was boarding in 3 minutes! Yes, this teeny tiny plane boarded an hour ahead of time. Turns out on Easter Sunday they were running multiple planes as fast as they could get them loaded. So we were off for the 17-minute flight to Belize City. So far, so good…

The problem appeared a few hours later, when it was time for the international flight to leave for the US. That’s when we discovered there was a fuel shortage in Belize. First, they said it was just the international airport. Later they said it was the entire region, including both Belize and Guatemala.

Since there wasn’t enough fuel for them to gas up our plane, we had to make a detour on the way back, and stop in Cancun for a fill-up. What with one thing and another, we got to Charlotte so late that even though I’d planned a 2.5 hour layover, I was just clearing customs when my connecting flight pulled away from the gate.

What made me happy was how well the passengers took it. A very high percentage of people on the plane missed connections, and because of the late hour, most of them (including me) were stranded for the night. Yet, people didn’t get too upset. Nobody freaking out, getting angry, or yelling at the airline staff. Everyone took it in stride, even joking about it.

It certainly helped that US Airways provided hotels and meals for stranded passengers. It might have been a bit different if everyone was looking at sleeping on the airport floor.

But I’m wondering how much was due to the fact we were coming back from a relaxing tropical trip. Did that mellow everybody out? How different would it have been if this was a flight from New York to LA that was diverted and delayed overnight? Something tells me the stress level would have been a bit higher!

That mellow tropical feel sure was more pleasant.

And why not? Stressing over it would have done no good at all. Sometimes you’ve just got to let go, and go with the flow. They’ll get you there as soon as they can. That’s life, and it’s all part of the adventure.