The memory fades as I strap into my jump seat in the rear of our Boeing 757.

As the aircraft descends into Cali, something goes wrong. Suddenly, the aircraft pulls up. Or so it seems. There is a powerful thrust from the engines, a noticeable trembling of the fuselage. I trade a glance with my colleague who is seated across the galley. "Are we aborting landing?" he asks, in a voice much calmer than one would expect. I peer out the tiny galley window, unable to tell for sure. "Dunno," I say.

We are both a little nervous, and for good reason. It was here, on Dec. 20, 1995, that an American Airlines 757 headed down a valley toward the Cali airport, veered off course and crashed into a mountain. Four people survived; 159 did not. Neither of us mentions this. Working flight attendants rarely discuss airplane disasters. Especially while the plane they're on is vectoring toward a landing strip. I close my eyes and try not to think of the mountains, focusing my attention instead on the beautiful images flickering on the dark screen of my eyelids: 14-C,16-A, 21-A, 21-E, 22-B & C, and 25-D, E, & F.

When the gear wheels kiss the runway I am relieved. I do not mention this to my colleague. If he is relieved, he does not mention it to me. (Later, the captain gives a very rational, albeit technical explanation about our approach. It was routine. "No, the landing was not aborted," he adds.) We stand at the back of the plane in silence, watching as passengers deplane. There is a knock on the right-hand galley door. Airline security. A small uniformed woman enters the aircraft and asks if I locked the liquor carts. Of course I locked the liquor carts. I nod my head, she smiles and turns to frisk a catering representative who enters the plane behind her.

For obvious reasons, security is a huge issue in Colombia. Tomorrow morning, when we arrive at the Cali airport for our return flight to Miami, we will pass through three security checkpoints. At the second checkpoint all passengers are frisked by hand. Sometimes the crew is frisked, sometimes we are not. Carry-on items are subject to inspection at all three checkpoints. The last time I was here, two security officers at the first checkpoint were playing with an automatic hand gun. After my bag passed through the X-ray machine, I reached down to grab it. I noticed then that the security officer was holding a gun in his outstretched hand. He pulled back on the slide, pulled the trigger several times, and nodded approvingly to his comrade. On a previous pass through the first security checkpoint, a different officer toyed with a nickel-plated revolver. He spun the chamber once and smiled at his co-worker, oblivious to the widening eyes of me and my crew.

This is what we'll go through tomorrow morning (minus the gun play, perhaps), exactly ten hours from now. At present, the entire crew -- four flight attendants and two pilots -- are waiting for me in the jet bridge. I am the last to leave the aircraft. Together, we roll our crew bags down the jet bridge and past the immigration checkpoint. There, in a long queue of passengers, I notice familiar faces: the groom from Arizona, the Olympic wrestling coach, the grieving friend, the lovely occupants of 14-C,16-A, 21-A, 21-E, 22-B & C, and 25-D, E, & F. I wave to all of them as we skirt immigration. They all wave back and smile.

Outside the airport, a mob of maybe 200 people are waiting to greet their loved ones. The faces are black, white, brown, olive -- the Cali region, according to my guidebook, is one of the more ethnically diverse areas of Colombia. The crowd is like a solid, multi-hued wall. We push through a crack in the surface, dragging our roll-aboards over shuffling feet that seem oblivious to the parade of tiny wheels. Above the crowd, I see the curved slope of our crew van. The driver sees us and gives a quick wave. One by one, he places our bags in the van's rear compartment. We pile in through the side door, but when the driver turns the key in the ignition, the engine fails to start. He tries again and again without success. Suddenly, the captain loses it. "This is the third damned time this has happened this month," he cries. Because the driver doesn't speak English, he fails to respond. The Spanish-speaking flight attendant chooses not to relay the captain's message.

After a few minutes, we crawl out of the van. The captain rushes into the airport, toward company operations, to arrange secondary transport to the hotel. While he is gone, I mention that in 14 years of flying, I can't recall a single instance when the crew van has broken down: not in Buenos Aires, Madrid or the Dominican Republic. Not in Brussels, St. Martin, Mexico City, Ecuador, Venezuela, Jamaica, Boise or anywhere else. "We take van transport for granted," I say. The crew shares my sentiments. And so does the crew van, apparently. As if by magic, the engine turns over and roars.

When the captain returns, we pile into the van and pull away from the curb. He makes a few abrasive comments to the driver and tells the Spanish-speaking flight attendant to translate. Patricia, an English-speaking flight attendant, interrupts. "Why don't you learn Spanish and tell him yourself," she says. Patricia and the captain begin to argue. "He needs to get a new van," the captain exclaims. "How do you think passengers would like it if our airplane engines failed to start?"

"It happens at least once every day," I say. The Captain ignores my comment.

For about five seconds, a peaceful silence settles inside the van. As if prompted by some unheard question, the captain barks at Patricia. Seems he didn't get a chance to make his point. Patricia barks back. They go back and forth, back and forth, yelling at each other like an old married couple. The other crew members are quiet. I look out the window, watching a South American moon play peek-a-boo from behind a drifting veil of clouds.

In less than 30 minutes we are in downtown Cali. There are a few glittering high-rise office buildings here, and lots of neon lights. But the surrounding area is rife with stubby, one-story buildings that are beaten and shabby. While waiting for the green light, just one block away from the hotel, we hear a loud popping noise. This is followed by a five-second hiss. It's the hose to the air conditioning unit, the driver says. He'll have to fix it before picking us up tomorrow morning. And as we pull into the driveway of the Intercontinental Hotel, a palace fit for kings and queens, the captain starts bitching again. Apparently, the Cali Intercontinental does not receive the satellite television channels he prefers.