1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM, 3:30 AM- not much sleep because I was afraid of not waking up to the alarm. Well, a shower, dressed and out the door at 4 AM, right on time. So now we are outside and not a soul in sight, nor any cars or taxis. Oops. We returned back into the hotel to have them call a taxi for us. After about 10 minutes a guy shows up in a black car with dollar sign shoe polished on the windows and wants 10 Pesos a kilometer. No thanks, we got out and started walking again, this time we actually went the wrong way. Even though we could see a jet 200 feet away, a police officer that was in the area told us to go in the opposite direction. Guess we were pretty much lost. After only a short walk this time, a taxi came by and wanted 50 Pesos. Done!

The airport was about 10 kilometers from the hotel from what the driver told us. That means we put some miles on last night.  We made it to the airport early and of course, nothing is open. These were one of those times that even bad coffee would be good.

Checked in, went to immigration to check out of the country. It would have been pretty simple if we could speak and read Spanish.  We managed just fine without too many hiccups, except one. I asked someone what time it was and because of his answer, all previously stated times are now void. We were an hour early for everything.  It wasn’t so bad, we boarded and we off the ground again.

The view from the plane was quite nice once out of the smog. We got to see a snow capped volcano just outside of Mexico City. One of these days I will find out what the name of it is. At this point, I think is where I lost all direction. I have no idea which way is north.  The only thing I do know is that we will land in Panama City, Panama for a quick 1 hour layover. On the decent we got to see the waiting room for the Panama Canal but never actually saw the canal, bummer.

Up,Up and away again. It was another uneventful flight but the landing into Quito, Ecuador was pretty amazing. Quito is in a bowl at somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 feet. When the planes come in, they pretty much drop from the sky and stop. The land was very lush and green. I don’t think I even saw any dirt. Just green, green and more green.

Welcome to Ecuador!