Had a nice 3pm flight out of Miami and as Mike and i entered the airport we started to see our travel partners one b one. Our flight to Quito was very We arrived in Quito approximately at 8 pm and it was smooth sailing! Some one was there waiting for us with all our names on a board, when you see its a great start of the trip. We arrived at our hotel the JW Marriott we are all very happy as it is a very nice hotel. We could not wait to put our luggage in the room and get a cocktail! So we all met down stairs and had a late dinner that was surprisingly good being that it was hotel food, except for the large piece of plastic that one of us found on our dinner plate after practically eating the whole meal.
We are all exhausted from the travel so we called it a day, we have a long day tomorrow we are mountain biking through Papallacta!
I will try to continue my blog but not much Internet around here.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The joys of packing
The adventure to the Galapagos gets a little more complicated for the packing because of our stop in Quito , it is cold, like 48 degrees and there will be chill in the air during the evening on the boat, packing may not be complicated for those who like the granola look or can wear the same outfit over and over but if you know me I could never wear those birkenstock shoes and flowery peasant dresses for weeks or even a day, actually I dont even own any of it.It would be so much easier if I could just purchase something new for every day, but I guess I will have to throw my self into my closet and start digging. It will take some skills to find clothes in my closet that actually cover up or some what conceal my 34 D's which will be another task because almost everything I own enhances my girls, but I don't want to bring to much attention to that area so that I blend in the crowd and avoid getting mugged while we are in Quito! This is when i wish i had a fairy god mother that would just show up with her wand and poof i was packed and looking like everything was matching , pressed and just out of a catalog , no such luck.Well I feel better now so here I go. My photo's will tell all.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
What's Next
We are now 11 days and waiting filled with excitement for our departure to our journey through the Galapagos Islands. Just a few weeks ago i thought to my self Wow it has been very pleasurable planing this trip, our contact in Ecuador has been very responsive and everything has gone so smooth, i must say i was a little leery about this and as usual the glitches began this week. Here we are only 2 weeks from the departure and our reservations has been been in full by all of us and oh yeah i get an email that the Country of Ecuador has decided to charge a new fee for airline tickets as they are subsidising for fuel??? I am sure they have known this was going to happen but no one gave us notice until just last week, go figure? This kind of issue does not really rattle me that much i find it quite amusing when dealing with other countries. Usually when you are quoted a rate especially 10 months before final payment that should be the rate they honor , yes airline tickets are subject to change until purchased but we had paid the full balance before Nov 15 so at this time they should have purchased our tickets and saved us the fee that has been put into order on Jan 1. But it was the Holidays and they fell behind so we pay more. So funny i even received a letter written by the President of Ecuador showing the new law. Not much we could do at this point but pay, cancel or dispute this with our credit card companies so we just paid our 94.00 and moved on, we want things to continue smoothly and make sure the rest of our plans move right along.
Approximately 5 days later we all receive an email from the hotel in Santa Cruz The Royal Palm Resort in the Galapagos Island that i specifically chose because of its remote, pristine and yes quite location letting us know that there is going to be construction yes construction going on while we are there, are you F'n kidding me!!! Did they just get this memo we leave in just 11 days i am sure they have known about this construction but decided to let us know once you are out of your cancellation period. So i retaliated hoping to get at least 1 free night stay or some credit towards some local tours. This is why most people use travel agencies or travel planners , the average traveler would not deal with these issues directly, your agent would and most likely you would arrive get slapped with the charge at the counter for your ticket then get to the hotel check in grab a cocktail go sit by the pool and begin to hear the jack hammer humming in your ear! Well at least we know ahead of time and make plan to stay away from the resort during the day which most likely we would be doing anyways. I am not flying to South America to sit by the pool i do that at home. Changing to another hotel is almost out of the question in Santa Cruz since there are only 3 hotels worthy of staying at and at this point because of the limited amount of people that travel to the Galapagos Islands they are probably booked or we would get the bottom of the barrel room. With all this said in short they have you by the nads!
These are just normal travel issues and they will not interfere with our wonderful journey. I keep using the word journey because i don't quite call this a vacation, to me vacation is hanging out in a resort by the pool, getting cocktails, spa treatments and going to see the local cheesy band that plays in the hotel gazebo, this is all good at times but this is not one of those types of trips. The Galapagos is going to be a playground of education "Darwin's Theory", hiking and snorkeling, discovery , encountering many species of animals we have never seen or heard of before. I am so thankful to be able to visit this area of our amazing and intriguing part of the planet that may some day be closed off completely to humans because it is one of the last quite places on earth.
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