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Rocky Road to Ecuador
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Rocky Road to Ecuador
Well we are finally in Ecuador. But I think we have experienced some resistance from a higher being!! Or was it some of our families sending some vibes to try and get us to stay?? Or maybe the Taxation Office??
This is a long ezine, so just read the headings if you don't have time to read the details.
John slept in
Firstly we were doing very last minute packing on Thursday and we slept on borrowed foam mattresses from John's Mum so that we could get an early start to finish packing on the last day. The plane was scheduled to leave at 4PM Friday (19th Sept), but we still had quite a lot of last minute tidying up. John thought that he would wake up at 4am like he normally does and finish off accounts and filing. We mostly only had that to tidy-up and finish cleaning the apartment. Our landlord was arriving at 9.00 AM for final inspection. He also had tilers coming to start work on replacing some carpets with tiles before renting to new tenants.
But John slept in until 6am - probably due to his own exhaustion. That put him behind by a couple of critical hours.
Problem with cars and trailer
In order to still be able to use John's small trailer to finish transporting goods like the refrigerator, washing machine, etc to the storage unit, we had swapped our rental car with John's son Brett. The rental car did not have a tow hitch. But Brett had also been under large pressure and had worked all night getting ready for a major off-shore project (sub-sea gas). He was not around to swap the cars back, as arranged. So John drove to Brett's work to get the rental car. That exercise took another hour.
John had misplaced Brett's house keys
Then at about 10 AM Brett called John and said he was catching a taxi home to have a sleep. The problem was that in the rush, John had left Brett's house keys in the door when he shifted our large office chairs into his home for safe-keeping. Brett's house-mate had then found the keys in the door and locked them away in the house (thinking that they were a spare set). But then the house mate had his phone turned off while he was at an appointment, so was not even contactable by Brett or John. Brett's phone battery had also gone flat and could not call anyone to help him get into his own house to have a sleep. So he was not happy - being totally exhausted from working about 30 hours without sleep. John then drove him to another family home/bed - just to get some desperately needed sleep before going back to work again. That took another 30 minutes or so of John's time.
No Taxi for me
While all this was happening and in-between other tasks, John had also taken me to the shopping centre to do some last minute jobs (international driver's licences, etc). He also had to do one last delivery trip to the storage unit in the rental car. However, when I called him to come and collect me, he was in the middle of sorting out Brett's problems. And there was a big taxi queue so I had to wait about 30 minutes before I could get a ride home.
Late to airport - missed plane
By this time, we could see that we were running out of time. It was good timing that my son Alex came to see me one last time as we needed his ute/pickup to carry some of our suitcases to the airport. While Alex was loading them, John had to do one last trip to his mothers to take the final bits and pieces, and to say goodbye. In hindsight I should have immediately gone to the airport with all the suitcases and met John there. I could have been checking in earlier. We also had to fuel the rental car.
When we finally got to the airport and by the time I went to the check in counter while John returned the rental car and Alex minded the luggage, I was three minutes late and told the flight had closed for boarding.
Next flight 8 hours later, and via another city
After already feeling emotional from saying a teary goodbye to my son I was told that next available flight was at midnight, eight hours later. We couldn't even check-in for another three hours. So we sat with our overloaded trolleys and waited. The only flight available was via Brisbane then onto Sydney which meant we would arrive in Sydney at 9 AM the next day - about 11 hours later than our booking.
John called his Mum while we waited and asked her to come to the airport so we could have some dinner together and have a more relaxing time with her. So after check-in, we went to the Qantas Club lounge and took a deep breath. In hindsight I could have also had my son stay but I don't think I could have gone through the "goodbye" again and besides, the Qantas club does not usually allow more than one guest. I think the guy at the lounge reception felt a little sorry for us.
Our luggage missed our connecting flight
We arrived in Brisbane at 7 AM and ran to catch the connecting flight to Sydney. It was so quick I said to John that there would be no way they could transfer our luggage onto the Sydney flight. Well we were not surprised to find it was not on the flight when we arrived in Sydney. I went to baggage collections to check while John checked in to get a hire car. While he was walking back to find me, he noticed our luggage coming in on a conveyor belt - obviously from the next flight.
While standing at the baggage claim my thought was "all our possessions are in those 5 suitcases". I wasn't as worried as I thought I would be probably because I also was exhausted and only wanted to get to the hotel and have some sleep. John always says to keep items in our hand luggage that we can't afford to lose. These days, our memories are now scanned into our computers and our backup systems. And of course we need our business accounts and access to our banking. Tax returns still have to be done, don't they?
Our hotel room in Sydney was already occupied
This was not how I had imagined us leaving. I thought we would be well slept and refreshed and ready for our long flight to Santiago. Anyway we checked into the Hotel and were given our keys to the room. When I opened the door to our room I immediately noticed that there were towels on the bathroom floor and then a pair of feet hanging out the end of the bed. Ooops sorry. So we went downstairs and told them that someone was asleep in our room. It was quite funny really because we had booked and paid for the previous night. Reception had told us on the phone (as I had rung them from Perth to say we were late) that we were already checked in. But as they could see we were standing right in front of them. The people at reception were very polite and upgraded us to another room and also had a little chuckle about the whole thing. Lucky for them we were not about to blast them.
After our showers we fell into bed for a couple of hours sleep. Then when we woke we went out and had a massage - a very welcome luxury after a stressful and exhausting couple of days. The massage was a spur of the moment decision because they were right next to the supermarket across from the hotel.
Our reason for travelling via Sydney was to spend a day at the Sydney Gift Fair - to possibly drum up some more business. But we were so tired that we just could not be bothered.
Fire alarm went off at midnight and we were asked to vacate our rooms
Later that night we were awakened by the smoke alarm going crazy in our room and through the hotel. Looking out in the corridor no one seemed to know what was going on. But for safety precautions we were told to leave the building. After quickly dressing and grabbing the essentials (the computers!) the alarm stopped. I looked out in the corridor and asked one guy who said we could go back to our room....................you had to be there and see the funny side.
Almost missed flight to Santiago - last passengers on
Sunday morning and we are off to the airport to catch our flight to Santiago. We were on time and it looked like everything was heading in the right direction. The queue was very long but I was not bothered because we were on time. In hindsight we should have allowed 3 hours before the scheduled flight time.
Then it's our turn to check in. We knew that we were going to pay for excess baggage and were prepared - but not to be told that we could not go until we could show a return flight from Quito to Santiago which would cost us an extra $1000 each. This was an oversight by the travel agent and us. But we wanted to leave our options open - we might not want to come back to Santiago directly from Quito. Or even fly. But we didn't want to pay $2000 when we know the flights are very cheap within South America on a One World pass.
Just think of the shows you see on TV like "Borderline" etc. Here we were racing with two large trolleys full of our bags to another desk where we had to sort out this mess with the LAN service officer telling us "You have 5 minutes and the plane will be closed".
The Qantas desk could not understand the problem. So the simple solution was to leave Ecuador out of the conversation - we told them we would collect our luggage in Santiago. Our on-flight to any other destination was then our problem. They agreed and so we were off. Oh - the excess luggage cost us AU$330.00.
Charged arrival taxes and excess luggage again in Santiago
Many hours later we arrived in Santiago (via Auckland) with a couple of hours up our sleeve before our next scheduled departure. All we had to do was collect our luggage, go through customs and re-check for our flight to Quito (which we had already booked and paid for).
We proceeded to check out through immigration and then told to pay US$120 tax before collecting our luggage and go out and then back in to catch the flight to Quito. This was simply because the LAN rep in Sydney couldn't see her own silly logic. We had a ticket out of Ecuador to Bolivia in three weeks time, but not back to Santiago. Another downside to having to re-check our luggage to Quito was that we had to pay excess luggage again - US$160 - because we could not find our receipt for the payment we made in Sydney. In our haste to get on the plane we could not remember where we put the receipt. Did we even pick it up? Who knows - our heads and legs were spinning at the time. All we wanted to do was get on the flight. We had plans of posting and faxing some important letters off at the airport. In our haste, they were accidentally left with John's Mum in Perth. We had them reprinted at the hotel ready to have them dealt with at the airport. (John has now discovered that he can send and receive faxes via an internet account, as though we still live in Australia, so it is not a big problem)
Even though we had to pay excess luggage twice, and airport tax at Santiago, it was still cheaper than purchasing two new Santiago-Quito tickets at $1000 each - or sending our excess weight separately. But we should have realized that we needed a ticket back to Santiago from Quito within the allowed time frame. But that still does not make sense. Many people simply hire a car and drive through the continent to reach their destinations.
Finally we arrived in Ecuador and everything was smooth sailing
At 9 PM on the same day that we left Australia, we arrived in Quito. Everything went so smoothly through immigration and then customs and we were in our hotel at 10 PM. It's as though we had to face and beat many challenges before arriving at our desired destination.
On Monday morning and we had breakfast and checked out of the Quito Hotel before loading on the bus to Cotacachi for the Spanish course. We were a little tired to say the least. Apart from losing a day, the adrenalin-pumped stress wore us down. We felt as though we hadn't slept properly for at least three days.
We are now in Cotacachi and have started the Spanish course. The attendees are mostly from the USA, but there are also a couple of women from New Zealand and a mother and son from Scotland.
I think this is more than enough reading for all of you. Keep tuned for future news.
Hasta Luega
Dixie and John
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