Left Vancouver early on Saturday morning for three legs to Quito - Vancouver-Calgary, Calgary-Houston and Houston-Quito. Executive Class ensured the trip would be low stress, and the fact that all three flight left right on time helped.
I knew the approach to Quito would be kinda scary, as the airport is right in the middle of the city. Sure enough, the plane´s wheels appeared to be skimming the tops of roofs as we approached. Although Quito and Vancouver are nothing alike, imagine an airport runway just south of Hasting Street, starting at Clark Drive and ending at Main Street. You approach from the east, skimming over hilltops of Burnaby and East Van, barely missing houses, factories and some low high rises. As you barely clear Clark Drive, you drop onto the runway, and hit the brakes hard, lest you plow into Chinatown. Getting the picture?
Got out of the plane, and walked into the terminal building. You could just taste the air of Quito - thin and somewhat polluted. Customs was easy, then proceeded to baggage claim, which was pure bedlam. The agent in Houston mentioned that all seats could not be filled on the plane, due to the weight of the cargo. This was now evident, as people unloaded 5, 6 or even 10 huge suitcases each, stuffed with goodies from America.
Not this traveller. Carry on bad in hand, I breezed through baggage, and joined the line to have by bag X-rayed as we left the terminal?????? Noticed a taxi booth over to the right, and pulled out the address of my hotel that I had written in large, clear letters that morning, and put in my back pocket. $7 to my hotel by prepaid taxi, grabbed my voucher, zipped throught the hordes of people waiting in arrivals, and spotted a line of cabs. Showed my voucher to the driver, and off we zipped thru a very ugly part of Quito, very industrialized and scary.
Got to the Mariscal area (nicknamed Gringolandia), and it was a total change of pace. Saturday night, near midnight, it was traffic gridlock, with the streets packed with locals and some tourists. And yes, they do Halloween here! Got to my little hotel, Hostel Jardin del Sol, which is right in the heart of this area. They had my reservation, and showed me to my room. Much larger than I had been to believe, simple but very clean, nice clean tiled private bathroom. All this and a free breakfast for $30 per night... this would do!
By the way, like my Around the World trip, these keyboards have symbols in all the wrong places, so please excuse my grammar/spelling
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