Traveling during Coronavirus by Chris
In order to arrive into Puerto Rico without having to quarantine, we would need negative Coronavirus test results from the last 72 hours. That is not as easy as it sounds when you have given away your vehicle and your travels will take up half of that time. Our flight was to arrive into San Juan, Puerto Rico at 1:39 PM on the 6th of August. When you account for the 6 hour time difference from Nairobi, it would be 7:39 PM Nairobi time on the 6th. So, we needed test results from the 4th or 5th to be safe. So, away we went to Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi for testing on the early morning of Michael's 11th birthday (what a birthday to remember). The kids did great and were able to stay in the line with the adults which saved us precious time and money to get tested. The test we received is easier to explain with the picture below:
We were all very fortunate to get negative results as they come within 24 hours and arrived on the morning of the 5th. I was able to call the hospital and get them to email the certificates to us which I uploaded to the Puerto Rican website: travelsafe.pr.gov as the second step in the process. The first was the travel declaration online form. After I uploaded the results, I received a QR code which I needed to have available when we arrived in the airport in San Juan, so we printed it off just to be on the safe side (as our Kenyan sim cards might not work in our phone in Puerto Rico).
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| Here I am filling out the online travel declaration and adding the Coronavirus test results |
The airline we traveled on was great, we flew on Qatar, which provided each of us with a face shield which we needed to have on after going through security at the gate until we landed in Doha, Qatar.
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| Katelyn and Anna with their face shields on....you also had to wear a mask with it the whole flight. |
We went through a transfer in Qatar and waited for our next flight to JFK. We had to have our masks and face shields on in the airport there as well. When we landed at JFK we could finally take off the face shields and went through customs and then onto our connecting flight to San Juan.
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| Michael was really excited to get a Dr. Pepper which was not available in Kenya Anna was excited to eat a Hershey's chocolate bar which also was not available in Kenya. |
When we arrived in San Juan, there was a man dressed up in a disposable full-body cover that had a cell phone and was waiting in baggage claim. He approached us and asked if we had QR codes and we said yes, he scanned them and gave us a slip of paper which was our ticket out of the airport without having to quarantine. It all went very smoothly, Praise the Lord!
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| Here is the man in the San Juan airport and me with the slip of paper that was our "green light" |
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