The Longest Day

We are on our way to Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands for a couple of weeks. The big pre-trip stress was the Covid test. Ecuador requires a PCR test within 72 hours of entering the country. With the current crush of people getting tested, it’s tough to get a result back in less than 48 hours. We managed, but it was a saga in itself. The tests came back negative (yea!).

Our flight to Quito was terrible. We left the house at 6 a.m. by Uber. Our driver narrowly averted getting stuck in a long delay on I-94 by taking an exit and getting back on again after we had gotten around the accident on side streets.

Our plane boarded on time, but was delayed by a frozen water line (in was -14F and the plane had been sitting out all night). They got that thawed, we taxied for deicing, then to the runway, but one of the plane’s generators failed and we had to taxi back to the gate. We sat on the plane for an extra two and a half hours, going nowhere.

That caused us to miss our connection in Atlanta. Delta has only one flight per day to Quito, and we were afraid that we would have to spend the night in Atlanta and miss a day of our trip. That would mean that our Covid tests were no longer within 72 hours, and we would have to find a rapid PCR test in Atlanta. Not good.

Fortunately, a nice Delta agent got us quickly booked on a Delta flight to Miami that would get us there in time to catch an American Airlines flight to Quito. We called our travel company and gave them the new flight number and arrival time, and they promised that they would pass that along to our tour director right away.

That Delta flight was also delayed, so we got into Miami late. Delta uses the H concourse at MIA. American uses the D concourse. You can’t get there from here. We had to leave the security area, walk (fast!) for more than a mile (the “SkyTrain” was out of service). Then we had to go through security once again, and walk (fast!) way to the end of the concourse. The gate waiting area was empty when we got there, everyone else had boarded. But the gate was not yet closed. We made it.

But the American flight taxied part way to the runway and stopped. For an hour. There was no announcement about the cause of the delay. We just sat there. Then we finally took off, again with no apology or mention that it even happened. There was also no meal service on the flight. There was supposed to have been a meal on the Delta flight to Quito, but we missed that. And we didn’t have time to stop anywhere to get food. American Airlines cookies don’t make a meal.

We finally arrived at Quito, and amazingly, so did our luggage! We got through Covid screening, immigration, and customs in record time (not many other passengers at 2 a.m.). But there was no one from our travel company there to meet us. Somehow the message to our tour leader had gotten scrambled. A tour leader from a completely different company helped us by making phone calls (U.S. phones don’t work in Ecuador without a SIM card, and those kiosks were all closed).

We wound up taking a taxi to the hotel. Our tour leader met us there and paid for the cab. But it was 3 a.m. by the time we got to our room. Morning came early.