Day 9 – 10-25-08 (Saturday)
Up at 3:30 a.m. to head to the airport. We dropped Kathryn off at her house on the way to the airport, she has a day trip with BCA to cloud city. We had a couple of tears and she will be home soon. She loves Quito, but hates school…it is so much harder than anyone in their group had expected.
So now we are waiting to board our flight for Miami, it is 5:45 a.m. and we still have an hour to wait until take off. No liquids are allowed back here past security, nothing in the airport was open when we got to the airport. We both want some caffeine in the worst way. We each got our caffeine as soon as we got on the plane. It took about 3-4 hours to fly to Miami. At customs we ran into the same nice man from Quito that we had seen at the beginning of our trip, he wanted to know if we liked Quito and the GI. and what all did we see while we were there. It takes a little while to get through customs and pick up our luggage and check it back in again. We have about 3 hours before we head to Chicago and then Indy. We find something to eat, and then call different family and let them know that we are at least back in the States even if we aren’t home yet.
We are on the plane headed for Chicago; we are worried about our connecting flight in Chicago. We sat on the tarmac for 1-½ hours to work on the plane in Miami. They were working on some strut thing, we want the plane to be safe, but this is nuts. We are supposed to take off from Chicago at 5:30 p.m.; we didn’t leave Miami until after 4 p.m. it is not looking good.
We land in Chicago 10 minutes after our connecting flight had taken off, we have to try and fly standby on the next flight to Indy. We have already called Nathan and told him not to leave the house until he hears from us, making sure we are on a plane, headed for Indy. Luckily we get on the next flight leaving Chicago at 7:20 p.m. and we let Nathan know that he can leave to come and get us now. We are just dead tired, hungry and have headaches and just want our bed at home ASAP. Our flight to Indy is only 28 minutes, we have our luggage, ïŠ ïŠ that, I wasn’t so sure of, with all of the messed up flights. Nathan was there almost as soon as we landed; we got our bags and headed home. Nathan has black hair…something about a Halloween party and a Goth costume. I am really too tired to take it all in just now.
11:00 p.m. one of the most amazing trips we have ever taken is over, we can hardly wait to go back. As much as I miss Kathryn every day, I am glad that she went to Ecuador, she gave us the perfect reason, to travel somewhere that we probably never would had ever thought about visiting. Right now I am just so glad to be in my bed and get some decent sleep.
The response from Adventure Life to my first inquiry was prompt and promising. I worked with Jamie Broeckel, Trip Planner, via text, email, and phone calls- always extremely responsive and thorough with information and explaining the process to arrange a private tour for me to Malaysia Borneo. Within about week, the booking was complete and I made decisions because of Jamie's great customer service , friendly manner, and overall competence on behalf of the company's travel expertise. Now I have an itinerary, additional Trip Planner Assistants, several links for vital information for traveling to Maylasia, etc. Still many details for Sept. trip, but now the heavy lifting is done and I can enjoy the rest of the anticipation and research!! Thanks Jamie- you are amazing!!!!
Susan Campo
2 days ago
The trip was not only memorable for the amount of animals we saw but also for the people and accommodations at the two camps where we stayed. Our first guide, BK, was a wealth of information about the animals, landscape and down to the plants and what they were used for. Everyday out was a learning experience with him. All the people at the camps were gracious and the food was excellent.
Our second camp in the Okavanga was just as good as the first as far as the staff, accommodations, food and animals. After our experience at the first camp we amazed that the high quality remained the same. Our guide, G, made sure we were able to enjoy every experience including a rush through the bush to witness a cheetah and an ensuing hunt that he heard over his radio.
In both camps there were enough guides out that if they saw something the other guides were informed which helped in seeing as much as possible. It was also nice that the concessions were large enough that we did not have vehicles following each other throughout the day.
Normally there is always something in a trip of this length that we think could be improved upon but this is the rare case where we cannot think of anything. From the time we left the States to when we returned it was one of the most hassle free vacations we took.
Perhaps emphasizing the use of the laundry facilities at the camps would be useful because of the luggage restrictions would be the only thing I can think of as an improvement to future clients.
Kenneth Dropek
3 days ago
Mary was so pleasant and professional. She made sure all of our questions were answered.