Travel Day 1 - Phoenix to Quito

The trip started out on a late note as we had to leave Phoenix at about 7:00 pm and arrived in LA at about 8:30...But of course our next flight from LA to Quito, Ecuador via Panama, didn't leave until 2:00am. Which gave us time to change terminals, sit around for 3 hours waiting for the COPA airlines desk to open and watch all the other passengers drag their 5 pieces of overweight luggage up to the scale, weigh them then take them back and try to repack…repeat..repeat. I thought the plane wasn’t going to get off the ground, with so much luggage. We boarded the plane and got fed, we slept a bit, then got fed again. We flew into Panama, changed planes and got fed, finally arriving in Quito about 1:30pm. There we were met by a friendly Adventure Life Guide – Daniel, and driver – Carlos. We were whisked from there through the vibrant streets of Quito and delivered to the Hotel Eugenia. That afternoon we rested up and did a little exploring using our “almost native” Spanish, (maybe they should be “almost naive") and of course had to feed ourselves.

As we lay there on our floor that evening, having gained 75 lbs each, and not being able to climb on the bed, we looked through the beautiful window out at a Ecuadorian sky that was CLOUDY!