Ecuador day 0: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Hello from Ecuador! I'm at my lodgings in Quito now, about ready to crash except that I haven't brushed my teeth yet. It's been a rather long day.

I started off with a 2am shuttle ride to PDX, then a long wait for my flight where I broke down and bought an insulated from Burgerville because it came with a free shake and I needed a water bottle anyway. Chocolate ganache milkshake, the breakfast of champions. Then a flight to LAX, where we boarded a plane with these cool wingtips I don't remember having seen before. 

It bends both ways!

Landed in Atlanta (greenest city I've ever seen, most of it looked like a wooded suburb) and had to hop on the Plane Train to the international departures. I was booking it because my boarding pass said that boarding began at 5 so I had 15 minutes to get there, but my seat wasn't called until 5:30 at least, so that was quite a bit of wasted stress walking. Just getting ready for the HP Global Wellness Challenge!

It felt really good to be on the last flight. No more connections to catch, nothing else to worry about, just four and a half hours to relax and watch TV (they even had Top Gear!). I dozed off for a bit, but I caught the end of the sunset as we were flying over Cuba. It was quite pretty, even though the wing got in the way a bit. 

 My first Caribbean sunset! It totally counts.

Then we finally touched the ground at 10:19ish local time. Quito is 2 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time. I deplaned and made my way toward immigration and customs.

Last time I left the country, I had a big holdup at immigration in Heathrow because apparently they want to know where you're staying, the address, and your itinerary to a surprising degree of specificity. So I prepared myself for that this time; I wrote down the name and address of my lodging, all the flight information into and out of Ecuador, and my itinerary. I was super on top of things...until I left my customs forms in the plane and walked up with no documentation besides my passport. Got a super dirty look from the immigrations guy, he wouldn't even let me use his pen. 

But I survived and finally stepped out into Quito. And Patrice was there! Our hostel had a driver come pick us up from the airport (it's a shiny brand new airport but it's an hour away from the city) and delivered us. It's really nice! Really pretty little courtyard and we got a room on the upper floor so there're some lovely views. 

All right, it's long past time to hit the sack. More to come tomorrow, including the equator and a church and maybe some salsa dancing!!