Ecuador Day 2: The Red Eye Plane Ride, Our Layover in Colombia and A Night Adventure in Guayaquil

As I was contemplating how I was going to stay comfortable and warm, our first meal wheeled up at about midnight, somewhere over Mexico.  I chose the chicken and rice dish, the other was beef and noodles.  I had started my free movie and I chose Wild, so I ate and watched my movie and of course only my left earphone worked.  Man, this flight kept getting better and better.

I watched my movie in its entirety and near the end I was starting to get tired.  This traveling was kicking my butt and I was not even remotely comfortable in my seat to even think of getting any sleep.  I got up to use the restroom and to blow my nose because it was getting very dry with all the recycled air.  Around 2 a.m. we encountered a little bit of turbulence.

I came back to figure out how I was going to sleep.  I tried multiple positions, blew up my inflatable pillow and tried.  Failed.  I sat there for a few minutes and then got frustrated that everyone around me had blankets and I didn't.  I was cold and wanted to sleep.  Beth came by and told me she couldn't sleep and asked how I was doing, I told her I didn't get a blanket and offered me hers since she wasn't using it.  I thanked her and spent the next hour trying to get comfortable to sleep.  I did get at least 1.5 to 3 hours of sleep until daylight woke me up 4:00 a.m. our time and 6:00 a.m. local time.

With an hour and a half left of our flight, the flight attendants handed out drinks and hot sub sandwiches.  Mine was turkey, provolone and pesto and I ate it with water because nothing else sounded good.  I couldn't go back to sleep so I started my travel journal (which eventually became this blog.)

We arrived in Colombia around 8:00 a.m. local time.  This was my first legit country other than the US and technically Canada.

We grabbed our bags and got off the plane to head to immigration/security. 

I forgot about my unopened brand new bottle of water and had to throw it away.  I had noticed a lot of women here are employed by the airport.  Again, we had to take everything in our pockets, keys, cell phone and belts off except for our shoes.  This time I had to take my laptop out.  Once everything was gone through, my bag was asked to be opened so I could show her my unopened toiletries in the Ziploc bag.  I had to ask Katie what the woman was asking me at first.  I took it out and explained that all of it was brand new and unopened.  The woman said okay and told me I was good to move on. 

We all walked down the corridor and into the waiting area.  We used the restroom, found a good spot to set up camp (for the next 8 hours) and turned on the WiFi.  It took us a while to figure out how to use it since our phones were from the US and not South America.

A few of us got up to look for breakfast and coffee while the others stayed behind to watch the bags and to relax for a bit.  As people moved on to their flights, we took over the comfy seats next to the windows.  I fell asleep for a while with mom's neck pillow.  I was so tired from not getting enough sleep on the flight down.

A few hours later I had to wash my face and brush my teeth because I felt gross from all the traveling and not showering.  I could not wait to get to the hotel in Ecuador so I could shower.  Everyone came back after looking at all the culture spread around the airport and we all took it easy, chatted for a bit and fell asleep again.  Amy snored and Katlin got it on video.   I ended up eating one of my Cliff Bars just to have some food in me so I didn't have to go spend money.  We tried starting a card game but no one had the attention span to follow through with it plus it was almost time to get ready for our flight.

Mom wanted to get a Colombia shirt (for her travel quilt she is going to make) so we walked over and bought two and got one for free and got a water for mom.  While we looked, we had a woman, who was very short, supervise us as we looked.  It was either their custom there or a company policy that people were assigned assistants to help shop for them.  We literally couldn't touch anything we could only point to it and she would hand it to us to inspect to see if we wanted it or not.  It was an experience.  We ended up spending about $57.00 which was $168,788.40 in Columbian Pesos and I was like woah!  1 US Dollar was about 2,961.20 Colombian Pesos.  It was weird getting our receipt and seeing all of those digits.

We walked back to our "camp" and hiked all the way to Gate 52.  I sat at a plug in for a bit because my phone was almost dead.  When it was time to board, we had to ride a bus on the tarmac to our airplane.  We got off and walked up the stairs to the plane, found our seats and put our bags into the overhead compartments.  I sat next to mom, I was in the middle and on the other side was a very polite guy and Beth, Kaitlin and Amy sat in the seats across the aisle to our right.

This was a very turbulent flight.  It was a short one but it was pretty shaky.  About halfway through we were served turkey, cheese and mustard hot sub sandwiches, chips and a drink.  I wrote my blog so far on our trip for the last part of our flight.  We descended into Ecuador.  We finally got to our destination after 24 hours of traveling.  I was so ready for a shower and a bed.

We got off the plane and grabbed the zebra bag that we checked in back in Seattle.  We went through customs and before we actually entered Ecuador, we had to go to a counter and the person asked us some questions, checked and stamped our passport for entry and welcomed us to their country.  This was my first stamp in my passport and I was super stoked!  We exited the airport and was taken by shuttle to our hotel, which was literally down the street at the Holiday Inn.  We really could have walked there it was so close.  We checked in, thankfully the front desk crew spoke English, they checked our passports to verify that we were suppose to be on the guest list and gave us our cards for rooms 503 and 505.  Amy, Beth and Kaitlin shared one room and mom and I shared the other.

We only had time to freshen up, hide our valuables and head downstairs.  Katlin had talked the hotel and the hotel shuttle driver into taking us to the mall and luckily they had a market inside.  He picked us up and the traffic in Guayaquil was insane!  Let's say you have three lanes, well the cars are so close to one another those three lanes are really six lanes of traffic with horns honking, people cutting off each other but the funny thing is no one hits anyone and no one gets road rage.  It's a normal thing here and everyone is used to it.

Mall de Sol was huge!  Our shuttle driver told us he would be back at 8 p.m. to pick us up in this exact spot.  We thanked him and went into the mall.  So many mazes, nooks and crannies.  I got lost instantly. We eventually just started following Kaitlin around. We went into a place called Mega Maxi, we laughed, it is similar to a Fred Meyer.  We found a bunch of stuff we could eat for breakfast the next day since we didn't want to spend $20 on breakfast at the hotel. I bought some bananas, Froot Loops and some milk.  I didn't bring a razor because I thought they would take it away at the airport so I bought a pair of them.

Then we went upstairs to the food court and got dinner.  There were tons of choices, including American food/franchises, and mom couldn't decide so I decided for us.  We picked Texas Chicken, which is an affiliate of Church's Chicken, because chicken sounded good.  It came with fries and a drink for $3.00.  We sat down as a group and ate.  The food tasted a bit different because they use different oils and spices than we do.  The ketchup tastes less sweet and more spicier than ours.  It was almost time to head back to meet our shuttle driver so we tried to remember where we had to go.  We stood outside until we saw the shuttle, he was about three minutes late and we jokingly made fun of him for it.  His name was Dario and he definitely made this an experience.

When we got back I opted not to go swimming or to the gym with everyone.  Instead, I talked to Erika and Ben while they drove home from the farm.  We shared stories.  Mom walked the treadmill while Amy, Beth and Kaitlin swam.  After I was done talking to them, I went and took the shower I have been dreaming of since I got home from work on Thursday.  It's been 48 hours since I showered last and this shower was utterly amazing.  It was great to feel clean again after all the airports, recycled air, weather and sweat.

Mom came back up shortly after.  I got onto my computer and she jumped in the shower.  I repacked my bag then sat and did some stuff on the computer.  About 10 p.m. local time, I was ready to pass out.  I turned off all the lights, crawled into the bed, arranged the pillows and passed out hard.  I really needed sleep and it felt nice to finally lay and close my eyes.  I didn't wake up until I heard mom in the bathroom the next day around 6:15ish.

Next Adventure:  Day 3: Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands, Tortuga Bay and Downtown Port Ayora

Ecuador Day 1: Seattle to Los Angeles to Colombia

I got most of my stuff ready the night before and double checked it because I did not want to be without anything.  I think I double checked it a few times and rearranged it in my pack a few times.  I was really excited but also really nervous about traveling to another country and how long I was going to be on these airplanes.

I got up and went to work.  I knew today was going to be a very very long day.  That morning we did our inactive letters, I got an enrollment packet out the door and all the claims orders printed and prepared all the envelopes to be ready to be mailed out the next day.  I told everyone bye and that I would see them when I got back on the 27th.  They said to have a great time and be safe.  I told them I would try to send them updates when I had available internet.  I left work at 11:30 and was home by noon.  I had Ben make me a sandwich, I changed my clothes, cleaned the cat box, said goodbye to Calvin and I had Ben drive me to Yelm Dental while I ate my food.

Trish called me to wish me happy travels to Ecuador on our way to Yelm.

We got to the office by 12:40 and hung out upstairs until mom was done.  We gathered mom's stuff and headed over to Amy's house, which was right down the road.  Ben dropped us and our bags off.  I told him goodbye, gave him hugs and kisses and he told me to be safe.  I told him that I would talk to him as much as I could while I was gone.  We packed all of our stuff in the back of Amy's SUV.  We piled in and we were on our way to Fort Lewis so we could pick up something from Josh at work.

From the base we got onto I-5 and continued north until we got to the Ajax parking lot, our long term parking arrangement, we paid, parked and got on a shuttle that took us and our baggage to the airport. 

So it begins...

The shuttle dropped us off at the Alaskan Airlines.  We tagged and checked in the zebra bag with our lab coats and toys for the kids inside.  We would see it again when we got to Ecuador.  We printed our boarding passes from Seattle to Los Angeles.  We went through security, which went smoothly since I had been to the airport in the last few months to know what to do with my laptop this time, and hung out at our gate until it was time to go.  Our group gathered snacks, water and used the restroom.  I plugged my stuff in so they were all charged up just in case I wanted to use them during the flight.  Ben called and texted before it was time to board the plane.

Mom, Beth and I sat together further back in the plane.  We chatted about a bunch of stuff on the way to LAX and looked out the window until it got too cloudy to see.

We arrived at LAX early, which in hindsight was a good thing, and found out where we needed to go for our connecting flight to Bogota.  We had to go outside the airport and wait for bus "A" to take us to Terminal C.  There, we waited in a long line that seemed to never move and we were the minorities.  It appeared that they were having trouble with their computers?  When it was our turn it took FOREVER, of course they spoke Spanish so we really didn't know what they were saying.  We thought there was something wrong with one of the passports but they assured us it had to do with keeping our party together for the next flight.  Which didn't really matter to us honestly.

Once we got our boarding passes (to Columbia and Ecuador) we walked back outside and followed the red line to the International Departures building.  There were a lot of Asians. We followed directions to where our information got checked, we were screened by a dog and waited to go through security.  Once we got through security it is way different than domestic flights inside the US.  Your shoes stay on and nothing gets taken out of your bags to be checked further.  All of your belts, pocket contents and cell phone went into your bags.  The only thing you couldn't take with you was beverage liquids but food was okay.

After we got through security, we walked to our gate.  Our flight was running behind so we had to wait a while, plus we were in group E, so we weren't going to be boarding for a while.  We used the restroom, bought some water and snacks since we haven't had dinner yet. 

I was banking on getting some food served to us once we got on the flight.  Our flight was going to be very full and since we were the last group on we really hoped there was room for our bags near our seats. 

When we did get to board, we boarded Avianca, a flight I've never heard of, I found my seat, which was on the left side of the plane next to a teenage Asian girl, I stuffed my bag into the overhead storage bin which was near my seat and got situated.  I turned my phone onto airplane mode which it will remain until I entered the US again on September 25th.  I was the only seat in the area that did not have a blanket. 

After the flight took off I asked the flight attendant if I could get a blanket and she said sorry and that they didn't have any extra and about 90% of the flight got one.  I was so upset!  There was nothing I could do so I sat there trying to figure out how I am going to stay warm and comfortable for a 7 hour flight in the middle of the night.  I thought to myself I should have brought a blanket and one of those travel neck pillows and I now know better for next time.

Day 2: The Red Eye Plane Ride, Our Layover in Colombia and A Night Adventure in Guayaquil