From the Galápagos Islands (Equador) to Lima (Peru) in 13 hours

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We spent all day today travelling between the Galápagos Islands and Lima, Peru. Ugh!

We all wished we could stay a week at the Royal Palm Hotel, but we had to head to Peru our next exciting South American destination. So, at 9.30am we were picked up and bussed back to the Itabaca Canal. We crossed the canal and then transferred to another bus that took us to the airport.

It was very slow checking in because the computer was down. The plan was to check our bags through to Lima so that we wouldn't have to collect them and re-check them at Quito. Since the check-in staff were doing the job manually it was beyond them to check our bags through to our final destination. C'est la vie. I felt sorry for them having to do the job manually, what a nightmare!

There was some time to check out the airport shops before flight time. First stop was the shop that I was sure had the sleeveless shirt that I really liked. What the?! ... the display has changed completely since the day we flew in and I can't see the shirt anywhere - not at the shop that I thought had it and not at any other shop before we cleared security. Fortunately all was not lost, as I waited my turn in the security queue I spied the shirt in a shop near the departure gate and I was able to purchase my souvenir of the Galápagos Islands before flying out.

We had an uneventful flight back to Guayaquil. At the airport passengers flying on to Quito were asked to stay on board the plane. That was an interesting experience trying to stay out of the way of the crew that came aboard to clean the plane for the flight on to Quito while queueing to use the ONE toilet at the back of the plane! The passengers for the Guayaquil to Quito leg started to file on board and wanted to sit in our seats. Hmmn, maybe the manual check-in on the Galápagos didn't make it into the system before they started allocating seats in Guayaquil? Still, we had our bums in 'our' seats so we stayed put. One of the flight attendants collected our boarding passes and the double booked boarding passes and took them away to sort out. All good, we stayed in our seats and they found that there were other seats available for the double booked people.

After another short flight we landed at Quito where we had to collect our bags and check them in for the leg to Lima, Peru. With this now being an international flight (between Ecuador and Peru) we had to check in our bags and go through security again. At the check-in counter Gina was organising for us to be issued with our boarding passes for tonight (Quito to Lima) and our boarding passes for tomorrow morning (Lima to Cusco) BUT to have our bags de-planed tonight at Quito so that we would have access to our bags while we overnighted at the airport hotel in Quito.

As we completed check-in Gina was taking charge of the boarding passes that we will be using tomorrow morning for our flight on to Cusco. With only our hand luggage with us now, we proceeded to security with our boarding passes and passports in hand. At the entrance, Bernie showed his paperwork and was waved on to the scanners. I showed my paperwork only to discover that I had my passport (which was excellent, I wouldn't want to misplace that) BUT I had Bernie's boarding pass FOR TOMORROW in my hand!! Bugger!! I told the security staff member that I would have to retrieve the correct boarding pass from my tour guide and I slunk off back out to the check-in counters. Fortunately, I found Gina easily and swapped boarding passes with her. Phew!

Security, Take II. I made my way back to the security area and found that Bernie was waiting for me to make sure that I wasn't going to be left behind in Quito. Bless him! I showed my paperwork again and this time I was waved through to the scanners. I guess it's nice to know that the security staff are paying attention. Bernie and Gabriel were told to take their footwear off and put them in a tray before walking through the the X-ray machine. No-one told me to take mine off so I decided not to remove my footwear. Yay, me and my hiking boots made it through the X-ray machine without any alarms going off.

Unfortunately my carry-on bag did not. Well, it did, but it had the security personnel telling me I had liquid in it and did I need to carry water with me to take medication? The bag was opened and I moved things about saying no water, no water. They were quite insistent that I did have a bottle of water and whisked the bag away and shoved it into the scanner again. After being re-scanned it was brought back to me and I was cleared to go because there was, in fact, no water in it. It makes me wonder if someone else's bag did get through with illicit fluids in it??!

When the group congregated in the food and retail area adjacent to the gate lounge we compared our security screening experiences. I won't name names, but one member of the group forgot that she had a bottle of water in her bag until after it went through the scanner at which point the bottle of water was thrown away. But, she said, another group member had her hand luggage scanned right behind her and, not only did it have a bottle of water in it, it was in plain view in the outside pocket. Hmmn, security screening at Quito Airport may be a little hit and miss!!

No fancy restaurant for dinner tonight. Gina advised us to eat something at the airport in Quito because it would be too late to get anything for dinner by the time we arrived in Lima. OK, shall we eat at the Outback Steakhouse and perhaps sample the Alice Spring Wings?? Other alternatives included Johnny Rockets, a chicken chain with a name not familiar to us and a place with pizza and pasta options. We were going to have burgers, but then spotted Philly cheesesteak sandwiches on the menu so ordered those. Bad choice, they weren't very good, but kept us from being woken in the night by hunger pangs.

Groan, sat around waiting in our third airport lounge for the day. Boarded an aeroplane for the third time today although this was the first time that we were held up by passengers taking photographs of themselves in the skybridge!! We were relegated to the last row of seats in the plane for this leg. After taking our seats we were very hopeful that we might have the three seats on our side of the aisle to ourselves but, unfortunately, right at the last minute the window seat passenger arrived. He had so much hand luggage that he had trouble stowing it and had to put his two, yes two, coats behind the seats.

Our third flight of the day was blessedly short! By the time our in-flight snack had been delivered and cleared we were commencing our decent. The fellow in the window seat was a bit strange though. He picked his nose for a while and then rather rudely requested two beers in quick succession from the flight attendants and then he spent the last 20 minutes or so of the flight curled up next to the window crying. A more sympathetic fellow passenger may have tried to find out why he was so upset and offer some words of comfort - I didn't.

This may have been our third flight, but at least we only had to do the baggage carousel twice. However, now that we were in a new country we had to queue up to clear immigration. Fortunately at this hour of the night we didn't have to wait long. Finally ... at the end of a very long day of travelling we only had a short walk across the road to the airport hotel. We were checked in quickly and Gina gave us our instructions for the morning - back here, in the foyer, ready to go at 9.00am!

In our room we unpacked our toilet bags, cleaned our teeth and fell into bed.



Steps for the day 8,326 (6.48km)

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Photos

The swimming pool
Such a shame we weren't there long enough to use it!

Comments

[Caroline Brunner]

Severe weather & flooding in Peru.
Hi guys, you may already know but the weather looks extremely bad in Peru for the next few weeks. Hope your adventure won't be ruined by bad weather. You'll probably escape the floods if you're going to Cuzco. Bon Voyage. Caroline

[Trabern]

We've Ben lucky with the weather
We has some rain yesterday, but an absolutely perfect morning this morning to climb Huayna Picchu.