Machala/Guayaquil/Quito

This morning we woke up and had some breakfast. Next we were off to the airport. We were supposed to get there at 11. We were there. Our plane was supposed to leave at noon and we would be in Guayaquil by 12:30. Well, by 12:30 the airport told us that the plane wouldn´t be ready until almost 4 and to come back around 3. We were not pleased. We had no place to stay and our plans were getting changed again. We had our tickets changed and at this point our final destination was going to be Quito. Only becasue the way things were going we would be there late and Guayaquil, the city we were getting ready to go to was flooding! So we decided to go to Quito...again and leave for Lima Peru the next day.

We went and had lunch then came back to the ridiculously small airport. Still no plane. they were trying to get us a new one because ours had a flat and the airport was so small that it didn´t have room for a spare tire. So we kept waiting. This airport was so small that the people who worked at the ticket office were also the people who worked at the airport. We kept waiting and waiting.

It came to the point that it was 6:00 and we had no plane. People were walking back and forth through security without caring. Finally at 6:45 we had a plane. it made it so that our 7:00 connection to Quito would be shot. Finally a little puddle jumper plane came, for all of us 12 passengers. they didn´t even turn off the engine for us to get on the plane. There were no flight attendants. We barely had our seat belts on before the plane started moving. No safety talk. We were off! Once we lñanded in Guayaquil our connection was delayed due to rain (rain came in handy). We had about 20 minutes to wait some more for our plane. We got on and were headed back to Quito.

I was done with Quito and now we are headed back. We can´t take buses because of all of the mudslides. It is such a mess. Finally when we arrived back into Quito we grabbed our bags and ran for a cab. We had an hour before our hostal would close and we would have nowhere to stay. At thispoint we weren´t even sure that the hostal would have a room for us.

Outside while going to the cab in the rain with my two backpacks, my foot gets caught in a trench filled with water and I face plant! It was painful. A little man tried to help me up, but with ll of my bags and having him try to help from another side of the fences, it just wouldn´t work. So I got up and in the cab, covered in nast and water.

We got to the hostal and they only had the dorm room left. We took it with 15 minutes to spare. Once I looked at my foot, it was swollen and a little blue. The man who runs the hostal massaged and put some weird ointment on my foot and wrapped it with a bandage. He was taking care of me. It was cute. Then we went to bed after a long day of waiting...and falling.

02/20/08