Quito
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2007
1
63
220
Trip End
Jun 17, 2009
Quito,
Panama
Monday, January 7, 2008
The flight was delayed by an hour and a quarter and when we finally boarded there was a further wait, until they finally slammed the baggage hold shut and we were off. Again a quick climb up and into cloud.
First view of the Andes
The hour and a half flight was very bumpy to start with but this settled down after fifteen minutes. As we started to descend through the cloud we got our first glimpse of the northern part of the Andes, here similar to the Lake District peaks. We floated down into a valley and then started to see houses covering the green valley floor and sides, as Quito is built along this narrow valley area. Soon we had the houses on the high valley walls level and then above the aircraft and this continued before a right turn lined us up for a landing in this urban corridor. Not too long a runway, with some serious braking going on and after taxiing in we could see another mountain at the end of the runway. Is this fun or what?A long walk to immigration and then a long wait for a friendly immigration inspection before on to baggage reclaim. Here we go - the baggage game again. You remember, it's where you wait for the carousel to kick into life and then the adrenaline rush as you count your bags in. Carousel, no movement, so we wait,...... and wait and then I notice a big queue of people, some from our plane, waiting at a baggage reclaim desk and filling in forms. Don't tell me? The gist of the problem runs down the queue, like some great game of Chinese whispers. For some reason, yet unknown, a lot of the flight's luggage was not loaded at Panama. After an hour it's our turn to fill in the form, with an agent that speaks little English and cannot comprehend that ALL of our luggage is missing
Descending into Quito
. I try to ask what happened and the story is that, as they were having trouble with the baggage door, they only loaded so much luggage. Fine but if the door is open and some bags are on, why not load them all? Mmmmmm. Was It the faulty check-in conveyor that caused a pile up and was not sorted in time before the plane had to leave or miss a take-off slot? The conspiracy theorists reckoned that carrying freight earned more money than passenger's luggage (who've already paid anyway) and so the luggage is 'sacrificed'. Whatever, we're in South America now and it's different game rules. Bottom line is 14 miles south of the equator, tour starts tomorrow and we've lost all 3 bags! Still we have a new leader in the travel baggage league, it's now:Copa Airlines 3; Amtrak 2; American Airlines 1
Can this be beaten? I really shudder to think about it!
The 'broken English' information is that there is another plane from Panama tonight at 9pm and our luggage could be on that, otherwise it might be tomorrow morning at 7am. We are given a special phone number to ring after 10pm to check the status.
A taxi ride to Quito, which is the capital of Ecuador and we are staying in the more 'modern' new town area
Hotel room view
. As we arrive the GAP (Great Adventure People) rep is starting the tour briefing. "Leave hotel at 7am in the morning for a flight to the Galapagos Islands for an 8 day liveaboard boat tour of the Islands". The briefing is to take only what we need on board, as space is limited. We explain about our luggage and are told that the best option is for it to arrive tonight or otherwise, the next time we are near enough on the boat for it to be collected will be in 4 days time!!! We book in, nice hotel, room OK and we plan the next step. We decide that priority is sun tan lotion, bug spray and basic medicines; that we could cope with basic expeditions and miss out on others that we are not dressed for and not to try to panic buy clothes at this time but at least see if we can find some spare 'undies'. All this on a basis of unexplainable optimism. It is now dark and mindful of the guide book's warnings that Quito is a dangerous place for muggings and robberies, especially at night, we follow the receptionist's directions (who can hardly speak English) and go out to look for a chemist. We find one a few blocks away, passing a floodlit bank where an armed policeman is standing guard on the ATM. We struggle with the language at the pharmacy (I learned 'Castilian" spanish at night school for holidays in Spain but this 'spanish' is different. It's like a person from abroad learning Queen's english and then being dropped in the centre of Newcastle !) We get some basic medicines, which cost us $50 US (Ecuador uses the US dollar as its currency) and as we leave, the Pharmacist warns us to be careful on the streets and not carry any valuables with us. We decide to skip the clothes shop search and scurry back to the hotel. An easy supper in the restaurant part of the hotel of a tuna stew for me, whilst Norah challenges the Ecuadorian kitchen with a request for (her) English traveller's staple, a tomato butty!
We sit in our room discussing options and scenarios and at 1015 we ask a friendly receptionist to phone the 'special' number to the baggage reclaim dept. No response. After several tries she manages to speak to another airport dept who tell her that the scheduled 9pm flight is actually coming in at 11pm. We're just sitting waiting around, so we decide to go to the airport and see just whatever is going on. A hairy ride in a taxi, driven by a budding formula 1 driver and the bonus of no seat belts, something which we have noticed is not considered necessary in the South American countries, maybe tourists are considered expendable? We get to the airport around 11pm and show forms and passports to gain access to the baggage hall, where we meet fellow plane passengers in the same situation. Our flight was no. 829 and this evening flight is 211. We eventually find which carousel and wait, until suddenly a luggage cart arrives and they start unloading bags. The bags are from flight 211, partway there! Then we see bags from our flight, 829, start to appear and bag by bag our fellows slowly reclaim their belongings. It took quite a while and many luggage carts before our bags emerged through the entry port, on the now overloaded carousel. It's just like being a kid at Christmas, the expectancy and then the joy of receiving something (or in this case, anything!) There are big hugs all round. They say stress can be good to stimulate the human body, well our bodies have been stimulated enough to last for quite some time, thank you very much. We whisk (again) through customs and a baggage ownership check, ie baggage label numbers checked against boarding card corresponding numbers (now I've not seen that before!) and another grand prix ride back to the hotel. We repack the essentials into the shipboard bags provided and eventually get to bed at 0130, exhausted.
