Day 1:
6:30 am flight. I'm up at 4, pick my dad up at 4:25, drive back to SF, sister picks us up at 4:45, drop some checks off at the ATM, then to SFO. We check in, get seated, though they don't have a seat assigned to us at first, which was weird. This airplane is of the early 1980's Boeing 767 variety, and the TVs were definitely cutting edge, top-of-the-line, oh my fucking God I can't believe that they actually have televisions ON A PLANE, this is so cool, televisions in 1983. I mean, the first passengers to fly on this bad boy must have been blown away by the high technology on display in these 6 inch wide 24 inch deep fuzzy COLOR television screens neatly implanted in the ceiling of an aeroplane. And the white plastic walls were probably pristine at the time. Those motherfuckers probably sat down, put out their getting-on-the-plane cigarettes, lit a putting-on-my-seatbelt cigarette (or an I listen to Huey Lewis/I'm way too hip to be square/I have a great goddamn haircut/let's do some more coke in the bathroom/I don't wear a seatbelt cigarette), and basked in the glory that is modern televisions, which probably offered one movie. Also, I'm not a huge guy, but people must have been smaller or less claustrophobic back in Anno Willini, 1983, because these seats were fucking small. So yeah, not the most comfortable seats, but I hardly slept the night before, so I'm out like a light as soon as we get in the air. I wake up after a few hours, stretch my leg (lefty got lucky - aisle seat!), read a bit, pass out again, wake up again, read a bit, then we land. I briefly considered watching the TVs, one of which was directly above my head and therefore not visible to anyone except the flight attendants in the back of the plane, and the next closest of which was halfway to the cockpit, but even if I could have gotten a good view on that twenty six year old monitor, which was a slightly different shade of green from the next one down, the only thing playing was a movie about what seemed like a child molesting greek bus driver who later shaves his beard and becomes a fabio-esque greek bus driver, the chick from my big fat greek wedding after a shitload of liposuction and a gastric bypass surgery, a cast of a bunch of former SNL characters who never made it to hollywood or had a recurring character that people liked, and a plot involving tourists in greece going on a tour. And then they all fall in love and someone gets sick or something, but it's heartwarming in the end. I apologize on behalf of the American people if you ever had to watch the movie I have just described. Shame on you hollywood. Shame on you.
Miami. Nice day in Miami, but we're not leaving the airport. Flight isn't for three hours, so there's no gate assigned when we land. We ask a friendly security guard where there's some decent food and he directs us to gate D48. We were at E5, so we figure it's got to be pretty close. Falso. No esta cerca, esta muy lejos. We walk for about twenty minutes or so, maybe covering half a mile, before we finally get to what looks like it might be a decent restaurant. Of course, it wasn't very good. The flavor was meh, the feeling afterwards was eeuuughh. Check the gate of our flight and, of course, it's right back where we came from, good ole E10. We walk 10 minutes, then find a friendly guy on a cart with a lot of empty seats and convince him to turn around and drive us. Sweet. A few minutes pass and we get to E10, only to find that the gate has changed to E5, which we had just passed. Of course, that was another 100 feet back where we just came from. We get to E5 and... oh, that doesn't look like the right time. What's up? Oh, the flight is delayed 45 minutes because the plane is late? That sucks. What was that you just told me at 6:35? Oh, the flight is actually gonna leave around 7:15? Groovy. Hey, it's getting pretty close to 7:05, what's up? Oh, the plane needs new wheels and an oil change? How about some new windshield wipers and a little coolant? Why don't you go out and kick the tires. Oh, and hey, don't forget to check the fucking turn signals while you're at it. Fuck. Read more. Okay, let's get on the plane at 9:00, two and a half hours late. What's that, there's a delay on the runway. I know. Obviously there's a delay on the runway. I don't like Quito until after midnight. That's why I chose this flight. So let's sit here for half an hour or so, then we can go. Thanks.
Airborne. Finally. Read a bit more. Pass out. Food! Still feeling a little gross from that shitty dinner at the Miami airport (guessing that phrase has been said before), but I could eat. Cue the weird plastic container of what looks like beef and semi-gelatinous mashed potatoes on top of steamed veggies. Actually, this turned out to be the best meal of the day. Sad, but the food was not bad considering it was on a plane and not in first class. And the flight attendant (executive air assistant? What do they call themselves now?) was pretty cool and wouldn't accept money for the red wine. So, hey, free wine on the way to Quito. Decent meal, feeling a little better, hey what's on the TV? Hey, look flat screens! These must have been installed sometime after the 20th century. That's crazy how they can do that with technology. I thought cold-war era planes and accoutrements were standard on these bad boys. I guess they care more about the people leaving the US for Quito than for the sad motherfuckers going from SFO to Miami in hurricane season. Apparently not the best time of year to be in Miami.
Anyways, maybe they're showing one of the many movies I missed out on while I was studying for the bar or being a law student. Bingo! Greek tourists on a fucking bus again. Are you kidding me? Like, really? Same goddamn movie from SFO to Miami, then from Miami to Quito. Either American Airlines is saving money by getting the cheapest movie available this side of Bollywood and showing the shit out of it on every flight, or they are part of a vast Laura Bush-led conspiracy to get frequent flyers to read more. My money, as always, is not on Laura Bush. So I read some more. Pass out. Read, pass out, stretch, land. Oh, and in case you're thinking, wow, Will got a lot of sleep on these flights, he must have landed in Quito well-rested – False. I sleep on planes, but it's like that weird half-sleep where you're never really out. So it only feels like you slept half as much as you wish.
Quito! Ya es la medianoche, y tenemos que esperar por casi veinte minutos antes que nos dejan a salir del avion. I think that was right. Anyway, it took about fort minutes to get out of the airport. And no, little vagrant child, I do not want a chicle. Find something decent to sell me, then we'll talk. We hopped in a taxi and went straight to the hotel. $6 for a fifteen minute cab ride. Not bad. I think you get charged $6 for looking at a taxi in San Francisco. The JW Marriott, at least from outside, looks pretty goddamn impressive. Inside, pretty nice too. $159 a night for this place is expensive by Quito standards, but you'd probably be paying $500 for our room in SF. Go to the room, read, pass out.
Day 2:
Wake up around 9:30 (we're two hours ahead of PST, here). Room service. Desayuno Ecuatoriano. I always thought it was Ecuadoreño. Falso, amigo. Ecuatoriano according to the natives. Lunch downstairs, check some e-mails, knock out a couple job applications, shower, head to the old town district. La Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus was nuts. Ol' Pizarro and his buddies really did a number on this one. They coated the entire fucking inside of the church in 23 karat gold leaf. No joke. This place was crazy. Probably 500 pounds of gold leaf on the walls alone, not to mention the ceiling. Ridiculous carvings and paintings everywhere. I bet they worked five hundred Incan slaves to death just mining the gold. And then they started building the fucker. Small wonder the old Spanish Empire didn't last forever, what with that kind of opulence in the churches in their fucking backwater New World territories. Jesus. Or Jesuits, that is.
Next, we stop at a farmacia, buy a toothbrush for my dad and hop in a cab. Trafico. This shit was ridiculous. We were going up a one way road the wrong way, along with ten or fifteen cars behind us. Or maybe it was one way our way until 5:45, at which point the police slowly move up the road and put a cone in the middle of the road, apparently signifying that the direction of the road has changed. We were in this pseudo-Old-European seven foot wide street for about twenty minutes before we finally turned down another side street which still took fifteen minutes to get three blocks to an actual road that was designed for cars. Hour long cab ride back to the hotel. Five bucks. Tipped the cabbie five bucks more and still felt like we were ripping him off. This place is cheap. I can definitely understand why the occasional ex-pat just moves down here to retire. You could probably retire on two hundred grand. Ridiculous.
Oh, I should mention that cabbies in Quito don't exactly obey road signs. Red light, no big deal. Double yellow? Whatever. Merging car coming right for us? Stop, go, stop, go, just miss him. And no, the seat belts are not available for passenger use. That's why they're stuck in between the seats in every goddamned cab we get into. Why have them if you don't want people using them? I'll pay another dollar for seatbelts. Really, I will.
Get back to the hotel, put on some pants (I was wearing shorts, not nothing), and get ready to go out to dinner. Ring, ring! Hello? Hi, Meester Nusong? Yes. My name is Eduardo, with Quasar (the Galapagos tour company). How is your stay, blah blah blah. Oh, by the way make sure you're at the airport by 10am tomorrow morning so you can get on the flight. I'll be waiting at the airport. 10am, you say? I was planning on making the 7am flight. Was I wrong? Oh, we decided to change the flight. Great. Thanks for the heads up, guy.
Dinner at an Italian restaurant. Pavarotti's. Not bad, pretty cheap, sloooooww night. I felt bad for the proprietor. Went back to the hotel, started blogging.
Galapagos in the morning.
