Days 1-3 Here I am

I'm terrible at keeping journals of any kind, so we'll see how long this lasts.

Day 1: En Route (11/28/09)

I stayed up all night before my flight. It was a good thing because I managed to sleep through both of my flights.
I only packed one carry-on sized backpack and my purse. I was happy to only have a few things to carry going to the airport, but I was thrilled not to have any bags to check (for the flights) or pick up (after the flights).
Immigration took forever. I think we were in line for 45 minutes. Then when we got to baggage claim Margaret couldn't find 4 of her 5 bags (2 of which actually belonged to her friend in Ecuador). After finally finding her bags we filled out customs paperwork and went through the safety check point. There were TONS of people waiting in the lobby area for people to arrive. Margaret had only seen pictures of the woman that was coming to pick us up, so she was a little worried we wouldn't find our ride. We pulled all our baggage to the side and by the time I got back from the bathroom Margaret had found our 'hosts'. Margaret's friend Brent was flying in on a later flight, but his girlfriend (soon to be wife) Elsa and her middle daughter Andrea came to pick us up. Brent came through customs about 40 minutes after us. Right as we were getting ready to go to their truck it started pouring. The parking lot began to flood a bit. Andrea agreed to go get the car and come pick us up. The airport was very busy so we still had to walk a ways to get to the truck when she pulled closer. My chucks were soaked.
Andrea drove us to the hotel that Elsa had made a reservation for us at. Elsa, Margaret (my 62 year old travel companion) and I went inside to pay and get our key, but once inside Elsa found out that the man working at the desk had given our room to someone else. He suggested that we try the place right across the street and walked us over. The place across the street was not as nice and more expensive, but we agreed to stay because we both just wanted to sleep (and it would only be for two nights). We set up a time to meet at our hotel the next day to go grocery shopping and do a little sight seeing.

Day 2: Quito (11/29/09)

Margaret and I wandered around a bit looking for a place to eat, but all the places nearby just had tourists as customers. We finally settled for a tourist-y place a couple blocks from our hotel because we were running out of time. It turns out that we were staying in the main tourist section of Quito, which explained why touristy over priced places were the only ones near our hotel. Margaret and I both had omelets for breakfast (they were filling, but very dry).
When we got back to the hotel Elsa was on the phone with the man at the desk. Perfect timing. They were running late because Elsa's two daughters had both taken nearly hour long showers. Elsa said she would have the man at the desk call a taxi to pick us up in 30 minutes to take us to meet them at the big shopping center. So, 30 minutes later we hopped in a cab and met them at the mall. The big grocery store was in the mall so they thought it would be good to meet there and have some lunch and then shop. The food court consisted of two Chinese fast food places, KFC, Texas BBQ, two Ecuadorian places, a meat place (with t-bone steak for $6) and a Venezuelan place. I had a BBQ chicken sandwich. It was a piece of lettuce, a slice of tomato, chicken and a roll. No sauce. It filled me up though.
The grocery store "MegaMaxi" was a little overwhelming. It was very large and very busy. We had to buy enough food to last us for about 2 weeks. The town we drove to the next day has some groceries, but a lot of stuff you can only get decent quality in a bigger city. Things are not as cheap here as people think. A lot of stuff you can only get imported versions of and they are expensive because of the tax to import them. Local beer is like $1 or $2 for a six pack, Corona is $10. They pretty much only have Kraft singles or Velveeta singles for cheese. I think just by cutting cheese out of my diet I will probably lose a few pounds. After filling a cart to the brim we payed, loaded up the truck, and headed to Elsa's house.
Elsa's house is deceptively large. The front of the house looked like nothing special, but once you were inside you can see that it has 3 or 4 good sized bedrooms, more than one living room, a dining room, and a decent size kitchen. We put the groceries that needed refrigeration in the frig and then headed to Basilica del Voto Nacional.
The rain started to dump right as we were about to enter the Basilica, so I couldn't take any pictures of the outside. The inside was fairly plain compared to some European cathedrals I've been to, but the stained glass and the flooring was beautiful. The only area we weren't allowed to enter was the actual chapel. You could pretty much literally go everywhere else. Camila (Elsa's youngest daughter, 11) and I walked up flight after flight of stairs, then there were a few flights of metal spiral steps and then there were 4 sketchy looking ladders leading to the very tip top of the bell tower. Camila and I went almost all the way up. We stopped just before the last ladder because I was getting lightheaded and Camila was getting scared. It was pretty amazing. The view was spectacular. I took some pictures, but the lighting was not great so they didn't turn out too well.
After we were done Brent got the truck and pulled up out front, we ran (it was still raining heavily). We went back to Elsa's house and talked a while. Elsa and Brent were meeting with an architect shortly after so she called us a cab back to our hotel. Cab drivers have a hard time finding her house because it's on a dead end, so we had to call a second cab and give them exact directions.
When the cab finally arrived, she talked to the driver and he agreed to pick us up from our hotel the next morning to bring us back to their house to load the truck. Once we got to the hotel we wandered around a bit to find a place for dinner. The place we chose had a long menu, and was clearly sponsored by Absolut. We had a nice long dinner and conversation and then made our way back to the hotel to sleep.

Day 3: The drive (11/30/09)

I woke up bright and early. My bag was packed and I threw my bag on my back and was ready to grab breakfast. Margaret didn't want to drag her bags to breakfast, but I didn't want to have to worry about check out after eating because I was afraid we'd miss our cab. So, I went to breakfast and Margaret stayed behind. I had a disappointing bagel, but at least it was something. I made it back to the hotel just in time for the cab and off we went.
Loading Brent's truck was a challenge. There was so much stuff that Brent and Elsa needed to bring and so much luggage between Brent and Margaret, but we made it all fit somehow.
I tried to stay awake for most of the 8 hour drive, but if you know anything about me and riding in cars you know that I'm usually passed out within 20 minutes. I managed to stay awake wedged between Camila and Margaret for more than half the ride. The drive was pretty crazy. The roads are terrible and there was a lot of road work going on, but no signs (apparently Ecuador never uses signs for road construction) so it made for a bit of an adventure. Cows grazing on the sides of the road and in the medians, and buses playing chicken around every corner.
Our half way point was KFC just outside of Santo Domingo. The KFCs here have huge play areas for kids. I swear I've never seen one at an American KFC. They're called "Chicky Parks" and they're massive (twice the size of most McDonalds play areas). They don't have ranch, or real ketchup or anything besides Mayo really, so I passed on chicken strips and went for a chicken sandwich. I don't know which would've been better.
On the road again, I tried to sleep, but the ride was so bumpy and uncomfortable. I did manage to sleep for about 45 minutes. As you get closer to the beach the landscape changes a bit. It mostly just gets drier, hotter and the trees are sparse.
We finally make it to the coast (and before dark even) and it is very pretty, but a little overcast. The apartment is nice and the gated condo area our apartment is in has a pool, playground, basketball court and volley ball net. The fence just past the pool opens up to the beach.
In Ecuador, they're having an energy shortage severe enough that the power all over the country goes out for about 3 hours each day. This also means that the water stops running because there is no power for the water pumps. I also learned shortly after landing in Quito, that you can't flush anything in the toilet, not even toilet paper. Every bathroom has a trash can next to the toilet for used toilet paper. Most public bathrooms (at malls etc) don't even have toilet paper, if they do it is in coin operated dispensers like the ones used for tampons or condoms.
After settling in a bit at our apartment I went for a swim in the pool and then ate dinner. I did a little bit of reading (about Brazil, it's the only book I have with me, thanks Breena) and then fell asleep.