Anniversary

Monday, September 17, 2007

Galapagos - Day 1 - Departure Day

At 7:30 Matthias and I headed off to pick up Kyra and then to DCA. The flight to Miami was pretty full, but on time. Miami airport was very weird - narrow hallways and corridors between terminals like a maze. The people on the flight to Quito were mixed - young and old, American tourists, business people, and Ecuadorians. We got our first real taste of Spanish in the Miami airport and decided that we better study on the plane to Quito. We mostly flew over the Carribean. We saw some islands immediately after take off (Cuba probably) and then no land again until we saw the Andes.
Vamos a Quito


Quito is huge and surrounded by the mountains. Immigration and customs in Ecuador were easy. We jumped into the first taxi we saw and were off to the hotel. Driving was insane - cars everywhere, honking constantly, buses full with people. The hotel was very nice. There's a casino in the hotel too. Small, but nice. The altitude isn't awful but you can definitely feel it. We made sure to drink a lot of water. I did lots of yawning today too. We're on the 9th floor of the hotel. The elevators are very small. Kyra couldn't figure out how to hold the doors open when we were taking our luggage up (ABRIR!!!) and we almost lost the porter because of it. In a weird twist we're in room 9-1-1.

After we wandered around the hotel a little we got information about places to go. We headed for "La Foch" around 9 p.m. We ended up at a place called "El Mariachi Taco Factory" that had free internet and food. Kyra got a crepe; I got the smallest quesadillas I've ever seen, but the perfect snack size. Afterwards we wandered around Foch some more - lots of restaurants, cafes, internet cafes, hostels, bars, and some handicraft shops. After the quick meal and a walk around the area we headed back to the hotel. The first thing back to the hotel I did was manage to break the toilet. The handle just fell off, I swear! So Kyra called the front desk and they said that "the man" would be on his way. He was and all was good.

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