Coffee helps. The coffee here is very bitter and strong. I am a fan of heavily roasted dark coffee such as the type you can get from Starbucks; the coffee here is much stronger and usually there's a sludge of fine grounds at the bottom of every cup. It's an instant jolt to the system and very effective for these early mornings. As I scoop out some scrambled eggs from the chafing dish, the waiter asks me if I'd like some bacon. Sure I say. In a few minutes he brings me a plate of bacon enough for 4. It's the saltiest thing I've ever had. It would have been perfect for my salt craving friends, but I couldn't find my way to eat more than a slice.
We finish breakfast and finish getting everything back into our bags. The downside of all this packing and repackaging of bags and organizing oneself for flights and such is that there is a high probability that you lose things. I was fortunate to get back a memory card and card reader I left in one of the hotels, but now I can't seem to find my headphones. I'll need to get a cheap pair for the long flight back.
We learned that we could have checked our bags all the way through to Quito from Puno, and just carried enough stuff for our overnight stay at the airport hotel in Lima. But since we learned this on our way to the Lima airport, it wasn't an option we could take advantage of.
The flight was uneventful; we both slept through most of it. Coming into Quito, we could see that it was nestled in a valley and only able to spread in a north south direction as mountains to the east and west form a natural boundary.
We landed at Quito and collected our bags. At customs, the declaration cards are collected and similar to the process in Mexico--as long as you don't have any unusual declarations, you get randomly selected for further assessment. Both Judith and I didn't get the red light, and we proceeded out to the arrivals area to find our guide.
The problem was there wasn't anyone there to meet us. There's always a large number of guides holding signs with the names of the people they are looking for, and in Peru, this went without a single hitch for Judith and I. There was always someone in the arrivals area with a HAMILTON PANG sign whether it was a plane, train or bus.
So we were surprised and disappointed to find this was not the case in Quito. We tried phoning our contact numbers on my cell, but unable to figure out the combination of the dialling sequence to connect a roaming Canadian cell phone with an Equador land line. Next we tried one of the pay phones (yes, they still have them here) at the airport, but the emergency lines went unanswered. While I was waiting for Judith to make the pay phone calls, I found the Facebook page for the travel company and messaged them. When Judith came back, we thought about taking a taxi to the hotel and then scrapping with the travel company later about our out of pocket costs. With my social media accounts in place, I considered posting my unhappy experience via my Twitter account, but decided I would only do that depending on the response from the tour company. Shortly after, we got a response from the travel company. Here's the complete thread.
Judith speaks with Mr Lagrono who explains that there was a flight change as this flight normally comes in at 2:00, not 11:00 when we arrived. If there was a flight change it would have happened before we received out final itineraries in August as all our records show the flight arriving at 11:00. Anyways, he asks us to take a taxi to the hotel and we would be met by Rodrego. We get to the taxi line and get into the first cab in the line up. There is a manager ther who asks where we are going and writes down our destination on a control sheet. Then he tells us it will cost $20 USD and hands us a $20 confirmation card. The system provides confidence that you're not going to get ripped off. We take off. The ride is just over 45 minutes so the $20 seems like a bargain.
Equador's currency is the US dollar. They adopted the currency in 2000. It seems weird to me that you would use some other country's currency--I didn't know it could be done. In any event, driving through the city suggests to us that the country is more modern and economically prosperous than Peru.
Rodrego is there at the hotel. He is very apologetic and explains its totally his fault, not the company's. He reimburses Judith for the taxi ride. We sit down with him and grill him about the rest of the trip because we're now kind of skeptical of the ability of this company to deliver on what we had paid for. Judith eventually lets him leave intact.
We check into the hotel. It has the look of the Ritz Carlton and since the name of the hotel is the Dann Carlton the similarity is on purpose. We quickly settle in and get ready to do a little exploring close by. First was to find a bank machine to get some US cash. There is a $100US fee that needs to be paid upon entering the Galápagos Islands and they only accept cash. Then there are the shipboard gratuities estimated at another $100, extras you might want to do such as kayaking, snorkelling, wetsuits, scuba, etc. (???).
The room:
The building exterior:
The next thing was lunch. We walked around a bit and spotted a nice little place called the "Green Choice". It served very tasty food; it's likely we'll be back again when we return to Quito later this week. I had nachos (I know, I know, why would I travel this far and have something that I can have at home...) and Judith had a vegetarian wrap. Both excellent. She also found a dog to pet. We tried to play Pictionary, but it was in Spanish.
The Green Choice restaurant:
After lunch we went for a walk to find the Botanical Gardens recommended by one of the Green Cuisine staff. It was in the middle of a large park nearby. The park was full of people. We learn that it's typical for family and friends to go out on Sundays and spend them at the park. Parque la Carolina is a large park, with a full track, football (soccer) pitches, water park, etc. On the day we were there there must have been a few thousand people there enjoying a day with lots and lots of food vendors, buskers, basketball courts, performance art, and we didn't see all of it. We did find the Botanical Gardens and It was a reasonable $3.50 to get in. In one of the open buildings in the gardens, there was a flamenco class going on. We went through the carnivore plant building and I kept on looking for Rick Moranis to pop out from behind a plant a la Little Shop of Horrors.
Park scene. This was a drumming and horn group that was busking.
The botanical plant garden was beautiful and to no one's surprise, Judith saw a cat near the exit and went to pet it. By this time we could hear distant thunder and we thought we should find our way back to the hotel. We would have been much drier if the cat incident didn't happen, but oh well. I had my raincoat and umbrella and we survived the rain that came down on us.
Botanical Gardens:
Another petting episode.
At the hotel, Judith felt like having something to eat. We went down to the pub, but sat at a table for a long time waiting for something to happen, such as someone taking our order. When that didn't look as if it would ever happen, we left and went to a Patisserie restaurant attached to the hotel. As it turns out, it was a much better choice for what we were looking for. Judith had a salad; I had a desert. Both of us had hot drinks infused with fresh ingredients; mine was mango, apples, lavender and anise. Mmmmm. I'm going to make this when I get home.
Then it was time for bed. Guess what? Another early morning in store for us.
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Great pictures and commentary, as usual, Vicky. That coffee sounded just how I like it!
ReplyDeleteNancy F