Ecuador 10/19/2022 |
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Wednesday, October 19, 2022 - DepartureWe had decided ot to sleep, as we had to leave so early in the morning. At 2 a.m., Aida, Antonio, Sisa, and Yupanki woke up to see us off. We hugged them and said our final goodbyes. It was raining. We tried to doze off on the ride, and arrived at the Quito airport at 3:50 a.m.We checked in for our business class flight, and were told that there was an airport lounge for all airlines. We got a wheelchair for Craig, went through security and immigration, and headed to the lounge. When we got there, they said that Copa doesn't have access to the lounge. But if you have Diner's Club or other specialty credit cards...(Really? This still exists? Didn't Telly Savalas die three decades ago?!) So, back to the gate for us. I bought some chocolate bars at Republica del Cacao while we waited. This is one thing that we always do in Ecuador. We love our single-source Ecuadorian chocolate! We always try to make them last until our next trip, savoring one square at a time. The flight was at 6:21 a.m. We got water, snacks, and ginger ale onboard. Not much, cosidering we were flying business class. When we arrived in Panama City, a wheelchair attendant got Craig off the plane. He asked Craig to get out of the chair and sit at an empty gate for "10 minutes", while he got someone else off the plane. He said he'd be back to take us to the lounge. Ten minutes came and went, and he never returned. We tried to wait patiently. After 30 minutes, I asked a gate attendant to call for another wheelchair. It was supposed to come in 10 minutes, but didn't. After almost an hour of waiting, Craig was feeling very weak. We were both starving, as we had been up all night with no real food. We were really frustrated by now. I saw a group of wheelchair attendants who were apparently making their way to an arriving plane. I begged one of them to please just take us upstairs to the lounge, and told him that we had been waiting for an hour. He said that he could do it quickly before his other plane arrived. He was so nice, and we were so relieved! When we got to the lounge, there was a line to check in. There were four employees behind the desk, and only one checking people in. So we waited. When we were finally let in, we found a spot to sit and put our bags down. I went to the buffet to get breakfast, and it was pathetic: dry bagels, hard mini-muffins, etc. We choked some down to alleviate our hunger. A guy on the phone for work was talking really loudly so that the whole lounge could hear him...talking about investments in Nigeria, etc. There are phone booths for these kinds of conversations so that everybody in the lounge doesn't have to hear every word. We were overtired and increasingly frustrated. And we still had hours to go before our flight. Lunch in the lounge was better than breakfast - little turkey and cheese sandwiches, little tuna sandwiches, little cream cheese and pimiento sandwiches, carrot sticks, ranch dressing, small cookies and nacho chips. We went down to the gate at 2:30 p.m. We realized that the gate was literally right downstairs from the lounge, so we didn't bother with the wheelchair. Craig had a bit more energy after eating, and we didn't want a repeat of this morning's fiasco. We needed to go through extra security before we could enter the gate. We got onto our flight, and it had huge business class seats which reclined very far back and had footrests. We had ginger ales and heated nuts. Then we had beef in gravy with rice and veggies, flatbread crisps, salad, and a custard cake. After our meal, we closed our eyes and the next thing we knew we heard the pilot saying that we had begun our descent into Boston. We got a wheelchair in Boston, went through Global Entry, and got our luggage right away. We got a taxi, which turned out to be a one-week-old Toyota Sienna hybrid. When we finally were close to home, we found that our exit was closed due to construction, so we had to loop around. We got home shortly after 10:30 p.m. Talk about a long day! |
 See all photos from October 19 |
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