Quito/Galapagos

Day 1 – 10-17-08 (Friday) Chickie, we are on our way!!! We left home @ 5:00 a.m. Nathan was with friends and got home @ 4:30 a.m. – he is such a nut. I was dead asleep until I heard the door close. We just had him drop us off, so he wouldn’t have to stay in the airport, since he can’t go past security anyway. From Indianapolis to Chicago the flight was a little bumpy, but not to bad. We were in another one of those prop planes, two seats on one side and one seat on the other. Dad and I got to sit together, but we traded with this nice young woman. We landed about 20 minutes early in Chicago and had to sit on the tarmac for a little while. We had just over an hour in Chicago. We bought Dad a Mountain Dew and me a diet tea and spent over $6.00… airport prices. We are on a much larger plane to Miami, three seats in the middle and two seats on each side. Dad and I are all the way to the back of the plane. We are just three rows from the end. We have TV monitors and they are playing nice relaxing music with pretty scenic pictures on them. We have three hours on this plane – time enough to read another book. Yep, I have one finished already, only four more to go. We are on the plane for Quito; so far we are on time, good weather. Miami looks wonderful…beaches anyone? This plane is smaller, with only three seats on each side. Dad and I are across from each other, each with an aisle seat, good for his knee. We just had a burger and fries for lunch in the Miami airport. Dad about had a fit cause we had to pay $9.50 each per burger and fries. I told him that we are “on vacation”, and don’t worry about it. Next stop Quito and you.    There is a nice gentleman sitting next to me who is from Ecuador, he lives in the states and is coming to visit family. He is telling me everywhere that we need to see while we are here and what not to miss. He is also telling us how much to tip persons, and that Dad needs to keep his wallet in his front pocket and not in the back, because of pickpocket’s. He is very interesting and I am sure his advice will be helpful. We got into Quito around 8:00 p.m. our time 7:00 p.m. Quito time, (I guess a good thing, we found out later from Kathryn that the Quito airport had been closed for about three hours earlier in the afternoon, because of bad storms and hail in the area. She said that it looked like it had snowed after the hail storm went through). Customs went fine, we found our representative from “Adventure Life” (our tour company) who was to take us to our hotel. Kathryn was there about five minutes later,    and we headed to our hotel. Hostel de la Rabida, a very nice hotel, we have a garden room with a king size bed. Kathryn is staying with us so that we are ready to hit Quito in the morning. We had them get a table for us, Kathryn hadn’t eaten, (Greg and I weren’t that hungry, they had fed us on the plane from Miami to Quito, after the $10 burgers) I just wanted desert and Greg had a sandwich. We also tried the “house” cocktails while we were waiting for our table/food to be ready. Highlight of the Day: Getting to see my chicklet   