We made it!!!!!
Trip Start
Mar 05, 2008
1
107
Trip End
Jan 11, 2009
Perth,
Australia
Friday, March 7, 2008
Upon arriving in LA, despite not actually entering the country (we were simply boarding another plane!) we still had to go through the customs thing. It only took about an hour, so we still had a few more hours to kill. The highlights @ the airport were cashing $100 bills to buy $1 chocolate bars (so we would have plenty of smaller notes for Ecuador) and Kylie trying to wreck a lolly shop by sending Jelly beans flying all over the floor! We made a quick exit & boarded our flight for Santiago, Chile.
Another 10 or so uncomfortable hours, and by th time we reached the airport we were absolutely beat. But with more than 8 hours to wait before our next flight, we decided to find ourselves a quiet airport chair, lay across it and try to get some sleep! It wasn´t too bad actually - we managed to get about 6 hours in total (but we still hadn´t caught up!)
The funniest part was some guy waking us up frantically to tell us our flight was boarding - nice gesture, but about 3 hours too early and the completely wrong boarding lounge!
From Santiago we had another 5 hour flight to Quito, Ecuador.
One of the sights in Quito, Ecuador
This included a stop & refuel @ Guayaquil - which was only another 30 mins flying time from Quito!We were met at the airport and driven to our hotel - Hostal Casa Kanela. Our room is right @ the top in a loft - complete with angled beams. It feels like we´re sleeping in a tent! Anyway, by the time we settled in & had showers, it was 1am. Thus the reason we slept in so late today!
With limited time today, we decided to find somewhere to eat - Ian discovered Empanadas (it looked a bit like a deep fried pastie, but very nice!) and then we hopped on a bus headed for¨Old Town¨.
We were a little concerned when a worried looking school girl came up and asked us if we needed help, and then a guy on the bus told us to watch out for pick pockets and to keep a close eye on our backpack! But it went ok. We walked a bit, went to a ´cultural museum´(unfortunately it was all in Spanish), then checked out a couple of churches - one with 7 tonnes of gold used on the insides! Then we caught the bus back, trying to remember where we got on.
We met the crew & our guide - Diego - tonight. There are about 14 of us - mostly Aussies - but also 1 south african, 1 irish girl & 1 girl from Turkey. Everyone seems nice. We all went out for dinner tonight to ... get this ... an Indian restaurant!!! It only cost us $5 each - and apparently you can eat here for even cheaper!
Tomorrow night Ian and I want to go Ecuadorian ... apparently their specialty here is guinea pig!
Adios!
Comments
yay!
I'm so glad you made it! I love reading your blog- I can hear you talking it (if that makes sense) Man I can't believe you were on that many planes for sooo long- yuck! When we fly to the US we are gonna stay in sydney or somewhere for couple nights to break up the flight - then on the way back stop in Hawaii. We are gonna book soon! yay! Well I look forward to reading ur next blog and seeing if u ate guinea pig... hmmm... Be good :) love Johno xxx