My trip to Ecuador

Part One - My flight and a first sample of South America!

How does one attempt to relay a dream trip?

To give voice to all that was seen, thought and felt?

To convey the quirkiness of the people encountered, all that was tasted on my tongue….

It’s a little like gathering sticks. As I attempt to organise my recollections, their combined power and friction conspires to make fire. My soul is set ablaze against my will and I can no longer concentrate on the task in hand.

I have so many photos and videos that I really don’t know where to begin.

I could have started with sweeping apple green vistas, the frill of lazy palm or a brazen carnival of animals……..but to do so feels disingenuous.

After all, don’t most exotic adventures begin with the mundane? And the purpose of the ordinary is to provide contrast and sharpen what is to come.

With this in mind, in this post I will begin with the first long flight and proceed to my arrival in Quito.

Thoughts from the plane, Amsterdam - Quito 25/4/2024

The KLM flight is full. The sort of full when the flight attendants are requesting help from ‘strong passengers’ to rearrange luggage in the overhead lockers. I congratulate myself for travelling light. One compact wheeled case and a handbag will suffice nicely. As said case glides the aisle like a nimble ballerina, I feel rather smug.

I have the lamest seat! Slap bang in the middle of a row. Not only will I have no view, but I will have a passenger either side of me, too. Still, so long as it isn’t someone obese spilling over on to me, a screaming infant or someone who stinks to high heaven, hey?

One of my ‘neighbours’ is already seated, a woman of Latin American appearance, similar age to me. She seems a cheerful, breezy type but I hold back from saying too much because later when I want to nap, I may feel obliged to keep up a level of perkiness I cannot maintain.

It’s always a difficult one - ‘plane banter’. On the one hand, you don’t want to seem rude or cold, but because you have to spend around 10 hours in a confined space with these people, don’t want to be too encouraging either. A conversation I once had on a long haul flight with a guy about the ‘federation of fish fryers’ still haunts me as 4 hours of my life I’ll never get back. Polite - yet slightly aloof - is the way to go, I decide.

A middle aged bespectacled man takes his place on the other side of me. In true joke shop fashion, as he lowers himself down on to the seat, the polythene wrapping containing the airline blanket and pillow bursts beneath him and lets out a loud noise like a giant whoopee cushion. “Bam!” he says in an accent that tells me instantly he is not English. Suddenly, he seems like a continental Mr Bean.

Turns out he is French and one of those people who is terribly at ease with himself, to the point of annoyance. Whilst I draw myself in, in a shrew-like manner, he has no problem with our feet or knees touching. Of course, I overthink this. Should I be more relaxed about this? Is it my uptight Englishness? What are the boundaries of social contact on aeroplanes? You see, these are the kinds of things I miss about the Convid era. No-one wanted to touch you, did they?

The ‘pretend night’ thing on long haul flights is weird, isn’t it? Even though we leave Amsterdam at 10am-ish, just a couple of hours in and the ‘sky nannies’ are pulling down window shutters and dimming lights.

French guy drapes his blanket over himself …..AND ME! No! That’s quite continental enough now, thank you, I think, and as I remove his blanket from my knee, I shoot him a look that communicates this.

I study the screen map that tracks my flight as we soar. There’s normally a moment on a plane when you see the icon hovering above the sea and you think; Shit- well if we went down now, we really would be fucked wouldn’t we? as your mind translates that vast stretch of blue into lively shark infested waters.

Normally.

But as where I am going is also not far from the Amazon and on the foothills of the Andes, today, these two alternative plane crash scenarios are also added to the mix. I consider every plane disaster movie I’ve ever seen, and realise most of them have been set in South America. Oh joy.

‘Alive’ anyone?

As the flight continues, I grow dehydrated beyond words. As a middle aged woman, Mother Nature has already begun the process of extracting my moisture like a greedy witch with a fat straw. The recycled air feels like it’s speeding the process up. I slather my face with almond oil, spray myself hopefully with lavender water…….but no amount of human WD4O cuts it. I remember in my youth reading an article about Kylie Minogue carrying an Evian spritzer whenever she flies.  Wonder if that’s still doing the trick for her these days, or if her head now also feels like an enormous dried pea in life’s Pot Noodle……. I roll my eyes around desperately in their sockets like the balls of my teenage roller lipgloss on their last lap of wild cherry.

As we approach Quito, I ponder the time difference and if it will affect me. It’s interesting that people so often talk about ‘if’ they could go back in time or into the future, yet when we travel long haul, we already do this. It’s a strange phenomenon to me that I can ‘lose’ time simply by travelling. Where do those ‘lost hours’ go?

Ah…….‘Who knows where the time goes’ by Fairport Convention slips into my head and Sandy Denny serenades me to my destination.

25/4/24 Quito

I arrive in Quito absolutely knackered with a splitting headache.

I have made an extra effort to make sure my handbag is closed and zipped. In the UK, I am forever being told by strangers (and my mum) “Do you know your bag is open?” and “watch your money in there!” This dicey behaviour just will not do in South America! I heed the advice of my Spanish teacher Ingrid who is from Peru. She instructed me to always ensure my bag is zipped whilst in South America and if possible, worn across me like a bumbag so it is difficult to snatch.

My first hotel has been chosen with post long haul flight comfort and convenience in mind. As I exit the terminal, I see it in the distance and walk towards it. My first taste of South America looks like distant mountains coupled with bursts of green. Families sit eating by small, sturdy palm trees. It is warm but not unbearably so.

Check in is straight forward and I am given my key.

Sadly, I am too tired to go out on the town as I’d hoped but decide on a short dip in the hotel pool.

Afterwards I take myself to the bar and peruse the terrace. Being an airport hotel, there’s not much to see, but just the number plates on the parked cars interest me. ‘Ecuador’ they all say. I speak the word aloud like a spell I am inviting to bewitch me.

“Ecuador, Ecuador, Ecuador….”

As I finally drift to sleep, I find my bed is the perfect balance of firm and cloud.

Ecuador……I command that you enchant me!

Quito 26/4/24

I wake an hour or so before daybreak, disappointed I only have a few hours until my flight to Galápagos. What can I possibly do in a few hours? I wonder. And then……it dawns on me. Dawn dawns on me! I have an idea!

Spontaneously, I decide to shower, dress and take a taxi to El Panecillo! It is a famous landmark in Quito. A statue that overlooks the city. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could watch the sun rise there, see the mountains! Was it possible? Would there be taxis around? Would the reception be able to call me a cab?

My mind alight with possibility, I smile giddily as I make my way to the lift.

Five minutes later a lady on reception has called me a cab and I am on my way with ‘Julio’ to see the sun come up in a foreign city!

As we drive back and daylight grows stronger, I glimpse a little of morning life in the bustle of the city. Hunched up old ladies carry bundles of herbs and stringy beans, whilst squishy cheeked, black haired babies cling to non-plussed mamas.

As we drive, it becomes evident that Quito has a stray dog problem. I see several, all of which are brown or beige and mostly very fluffy. They are not like the scary packs of dogs that used to wander council estates back in the day. Instead, they appear chilled and friendly. Many of them lie unperturbed in the middle of the road, sun bathing the way cats do. Others, are taking their daily dump in the undergrowth.

I also see quite a few middle aged men openly urinating up against trees in busy public areas. There is no embarrassment or attempt to hide it.

Despite all this, the air has no stench other than the fumes of the vehicles, some of which look older than I am. The buses clamber the steeps like overworked mules.

As men piss and dogs shit, weirdly, I have to admire the dirty honesty of the place.

We get back to the hotel just in time for breakfast and I feel like I’m in one of Wonka’s rooms as I find myself pouring a glass of the intriguingly named ‘tomato tree juice’.

And very nice it is too. A little like guava or mango. This really does feel like a strange new land!

But it is just the beginning!

As the Spanish language jaunts my ears like a tantalising tango, I contemplate that in just a few wee hours, I will be in Galápagos!

A place I’ve wanted to visit ever since I heard David Attenborough calmly discussing giant tortoises!

How very lucky am I!