Jan 14--Flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador

Saturday, January 14, 2006.

I awake to a 6 am alarm. Today’s the day I fly to Guayaquil, Ecuador, and the beginning of my long-planned Earthwatch Expedition.  I have purchased high rubber boots, a mosquito-net tent, plenty of field pants and shorts, a bushel of socks, a peck of microfiber, fast-drying underwear. I’ve packed headlamp, binoculars, bound bird plates, anti-diarrhea meds, antibiotics, malaria pills, biodegradable soap and shampoo, and a host of school supplies for the tiny village, El Suspiro, from whence we will start our trek into the Colonche Mountain Cloud Forest. I’ve a pocket Spanish phrase book which I plan to study on my four (count ‘em) American Airlines flights to get to Guayaquil:  OKC to Dallas, Dallas to Tampa, Tampa to Miami, and Miami to Guayaquil. I got them through the Internet’s CheapTickets (about $900 RT), so  I’m not complaining.

Jeff drives me to the airport and I am off. All goes smoothly until I reach Miami, and then the flight is delayed 1 hour. I spend this time calling Florence and buying a best seller (Jonathan Kellerman’s Therapy) to read on the plane. I had brought two books with me, but the one had only 10 pages or so left in it and I finished it before reaching Dallas. The other (sigh) I found I had read only the week before! Dum de dum dumb!

It is said that one needs no English in Miami, and I believe it. My flight is crammed with short, dark, Spanish-speaking travelers and their children, many of whom cannot reach the overhead luggage compartments, so I find myself assisting right and left. Almost all of the women wear their blue-black shiny hair long and most are dressed in bright, tight clothing . . . jeans appearing almost as another epidermal layer. This is to be the clothing benchmark throughout Ecuador, even in the very poor villages.

I occupy the only seat in the 6-seat center section of the big airplane so can stretch out and sleep. We get to Guayaquil, which is on CST, at 1:30 am. As I am getting off the plane, an English accented voice behind me asks if I am with Earthwatch. It is Donna Ore from the UK, one of my fellow Team 6 volunteers. We get our luggage and share a cab to the Palace Hotel in downtown Guayaquil ($5 plus tip) where we awkwardly check in (the front desk doesn’t speak English) and fall into bed about 3:30 am.