Friday June 13th
Today it is time for me to go home. But not before I decide it is time to make a major change to my travel plans. Up until now I have been planning on going home via Sao Paulo, but it would leave me sitting there for up to 20 hours, and overall it was going to take me over 48 hours to get home. So I decided to jack that in, and find a flight via the US. I found a reasonable flight which was Delta all the way through the US, and would get me home at least 12 hours earlier than the other route.
After doing that my final day in Quito was slightly more compact, so I have to rush doing my task for the day, going up the TeleferiQo. This is yet another cable car up a mountain to get a view of the city (done that before). But this is the biggest of them, going up 1000 meters to look down at Quito from 4050 meters. It really is amazing. If anything the top of it is a bit too high for good views, and the old town area and the basilica are blocked by a hill with mobile phone masts. I only spent 40 minutes at the top, partially because of my tight schedule, and partly because there isn't that much up there, but at $4 even just going straight up and down would be well worth it.
After that I had to get back down, have a big meal in case the airplane food wasn't that great (and I watched a pretty good football match between France and Holland), collect my bags, say goodbye to Marika our tour guide, and Colin our driver, and then it was off to the airport to begin the long journey home.
Quito airport is not the best airport in the world. There is very little to do in the pre check in area (in fact other than toilets there are no facilities at all), and not much after check in either. It is definiely not the best to have to wait around in and as I was waiting for my late booking to be confirmed I had to do a bit of waiting. Because I had left it late to book online, less than 8 hours before take off, I was unable to get confirmation that I was on the flight. In fact because nobody came back to the Delta desk, I never got confirmation, but just ended up checking in anyway. And luckily they let me on.
As this is a flight from a dodgy airport to the worlds biggest target (that is the United States in general, not Atlanta in particular, as far as I know there are no threats to Atlanta itself) there is a lot of security. Not only do the Ecuadorians check your bags, and do it as well as anywhere else, but the airline seems to have to do it as well to satisfy the American's paranoia.
The plane into Quito was delayed 45 minuts which meant an extra 45 minutes in this restaurant wasteland, so it was just as well I ate earlier, but eventually we were off to Guayaquil. This is actually the largest city in Ecuador, and it is on the coast. Because Quito is at altitude the planes can't take off fully loaded with fuel to fly to the States, so we have to stop here. It is a much newer and nicer airport than Quito, but we literally only had to get off the plane and reboard (for security reasons - get used to them) before we were off to the US. I think some people managed to find something to eat, there was a shop selling prawns, and only prawns, but it was after midnight so all I wanted was to get back on board and get to sleep.
Today it is time for me to go home. But not before I decide it is time to make a major change to my travel plans. Up until now I have been planning on going home via Sao Paulo, but it would leave me sitting there for up to 20 hours, and overall it was going to take me over 48 hours to get home. So I decided to jack that in, and find a flight via the US. I found a reasonable flight which was Delta all the way through the US, and would get me home at least 12 hours earlier than the other route.
After doing that my final day in Quito was slightly more compact, so I have to rush doing my task for the day, going up the TeleferiQo. This is yet another cable car up a mountain to get a view of the city (done that before). But this is the biggest of them, going up 1000 meters to look down at Quito from 4050 meters. It really is amazing. If anything the top of it is a bit too high for good views, and the old town area and the basilica are blocked by a hill with mobile phone masts. I only spent 40 minutes at the top, partially because of my tight schedule, and partly because there isn't that much up there, but at $4 even just going straight up and down would be well worth it.
After that I had to get back down, have a big meal in case the airplane food wasn't that great (and I watched a pretty good football match between France and Holland), collect my bags, say goodbye to Marika our tour guide, and Colin our driver, and then it was off to the airport to begin the long journey home.
Quito airport is not the best airport in the world. There is very little to do in the pre check in area (in fact other than toilets there are no facilities at all), and not much after check in either. It is definiely not the best to have to wait around in and as I was waiting for my late booking to be confirmed I had to do a bit of waiting. Because I had left it late to book online, less than 8 hours before take off, I was unable to get confirmation that I was on the flight. In fact because nobody came back to the Delta desk, I never got confirmation, but just ended up checking in anyway. And luckily they let me on.
As this is a flight from a dodgy airport to the worlds biggest target (that is the United States in general, not Atlanta in particular, as far as I know there are no threats to Atlanta itself) there is a lot of security. Not only do the Ecuadorians check your bags, and do it as well as anywhere else, but the airline seems to have to do it as well to satisfy the American's paranoia.
The plane into Quito was delayed 45 minuts which meant an extra 45 minutes in this restaurant wasteland, so it was just as well I ate earlier, but eventually we were off to Guayaquil. This is actually the largest city in Ecuador, and it is on the coast. Because Quito is at altitude the planes can't take off fully loaded with fuel to fly to the States, so we have to stop here. It is a much newer and nicer airport than Quito, but we literally only had to get off the plane and reboard (for security reasons - get used to them) before we were off to the US. I think some people managed to find something to eat, there was a shop selling prawns, and only prawns, but it was after midnight so all I wanted was to get back on board and get to sleep.
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