An Interesting Start

9/3/08

Well, after months of planning and waiting, we are finally off. I was up at 4:15am to catch my 7:20 flight out of SFO. I slept the first two hours of my flight and then decided to purchase a movie (Delta now charges $6 for movies also they charge for snacks and basically everything else. Anybody who has seen the Southwest commercial knows what I am talking about.) I arrived in Atlanta 20 minutes early but had to wait for the plane in our gate to depart, so I ended up arriving right on time, which for the airlines these days is very good. I met Unger at his gate and we are now currently waiting for the maintenance guys to repair the telephone. Assuming we arrive safely in Quito I will have more to report (hopefully interesting stuff) later. One thing to add; we finally took off. This plane is really old and loud. I hope the plane can make it the 2600 miles.


9/4/08


Well the good news is that I am writing which means the plane managed to survive the flight (who knows how many more flights the old fellow has left in him). Along with the rattling and other noises the plane still had ashtrays in the bathroom so I´m assuming the plane is more than 20 years old. All in all the flight was ok. (fastfowarding a bit; our taxi driver from the airport told us they are building a new airport outside of the city because the runway is too short. We coincidentally ran into our flight attendant and the two pilots while hiking a volcano in Quito and the pilot told us a story about an Iberian Airlines flight that landed, went straight through the end of the runway and came to a stop about 100 feet from a neighborhood. So now I am extremely happy we landed ok). I got ahead of myself but the story was relevant. Anyway, we arrived at the hostel which for $8/night is pretty nice. The building is very old, and the hallways and ceilings in places are narrow and low, respectively. But the view of Old Town Quito from the fifth floor terrace is incredible. Although the room is clean and bunk beds are actually relatively comfortable, I did not sleep much because some late night revelers were yelling at about 3:30am until about 4:30am. I don´t think the same noise rules apply to hostels as they do to hotels. But once again for $8 it is good. We woke up early and went up to the terrace for a relatively expensive breakfast for Ecuador standards. It was $3.50 all you can eat freshly cooked omelets, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, fruit cups, coffee, and juice. When we saw the price we said "screw it" and decided to splurge a little. After breakfast we hiked up a flight of stairs to a park called Ichimbia. Now I realize although I do exercise regularly, I should be in better shape, but man I was winded. The view was nice but I realize now it was peanuts compared to what we would see later in the day. We decided next we would go to the Basilica in Old Town. We paid the $1 entry fee and climbed to the top of the tower. On the way up we met a one-legged American ex-marine (lets call him George because I don´t think we ever got his name). George was a 61 year old fugitive who could not leave Ecuador. He is traveling in South America for two years and apparently he took a military plane into Ecuador and the guy who checked him into the country said he didn´t need his passport stamped. Well when he tried to leave Ecuador they arrested him. He sat in a holding room for a couple of hours until he decided just to walk out. He caught a lift with a couple of Colombian drug dealers driving over the border and when the police pulled the car over they didn´t even notice George and just arrested the Colombians. Now whether or not there is any truth to this story I don´t know but George seemed like an honest one legged ex-military man. After the Basilica we grabbed some coffee and walked to the main plaza. On the way I experienced the highlight of my day; my first empenada. An empenada is basically a fried piece of dough wrapped around chicken, peas and carrots. It was $1 and it was incredible. This country is really cheap by the way. We then took a taxi over to El Teleferico, which is a gondola($4) up to a hiking path that leads to a volcano. We hiked a little way and ran into a barbed wire fence. We asked a policeman working there if we could continue on and he said just climb under the fence (we found out later that people in this country don´t really view barbed wire as a way of saying "stay out"). Of course being with Unger we had to climb to the top, regardless of the storm clouds drifting our way from every direction. We hiked about a mile when we ran into the flight attendant and pilots. While talking, we saw our first flash of lightning and the pilot told of a previous trip here where he got stuck because of an ice storm. Well Unger kept an eye on the clouds and stated that it looked like it was clearing. So we continued on. About another half mile later my lungs began to feel like anvils and I believe my heart was beating at an unsafe level. So I stopped and sat down in the middle of the path. We were at about 15,000 feet so it is acceptable. Unger continued on. I turned back. an hour or so later we met at the gondola and started our descent down. 5 minutes later the sky opened up and it began to pour. I was right; going to the top was a bad idea. We went back to the hostel, attempted to read a Spanish newspaper, walked down the street and split 3 more empenadas (chicken, meat, and cheese). Did I mention they are really good. We then went into a restaurant and ordered the ¨Desayuno Completo" translated as the complete breakfast. It was 2 fried eggs on top of a piece of steak on a bed of rice with french fries, tomatoes, cucumber and avocado. It cost $2.50 and it was good.