It started at 4.30ish, cos I woke up before the alarm. Truth be told, I'd woken about 5 or 6 times through the night because of the noise of storm Katie, and because I was sleeping in a strange bed, and most importantly, because I knew we had to get up in the morning, and we couldn't afford to oversleep.
So we were out of bed and dressed by 5am, had a quick coffee and then were at the entrance of the hotel waiting for our minibus transport by 20 past.
Our flight was due to take off at 7:50 and apart from a couple of little hiccups, such as "Where is our check in desk?", everything went smoothly. In fact they called us early from the gate to board the chartered plane, so we were all on board by about half past 7. But our luggage wasn't! The storm was making it difficult to load stuff, so we waited. And waited. And waited.
At about 9 o'clock, the captain announced that the luggage was on board (Yippee) but now we had to wait for flight clearance (Boo). So we waited a bit more. After nearly two hours the plane finally started it's taxi towards the runway. Then, with hardly any turbulence at all, we were in the sky and heading for Ecuador.
It's a long flight to Guayaquill from Gatwick. 12 hours and 25 minutes to be exact. I managed to sleep away an hour or two, watch a couple of films, played endless card games and soduku and got fed at regular intervals. All these things helped pass the time. Filling in our immigration took up a few minutes more and even added a little excitement.
We landed in Guayaquill at about 3.45 Ecuadorian time, which is actually about 6 hours behind English time, so our internal body clocks were telling us it was 9.45, but daylight was telling us it was the middle of the afternoon? Buses waited outside the airport, ready to whisk us off to the ship and our next adventure. We walked out through the airport doors, and the heat hit!
It was like opening the oven door, the hot air hits full in the face as we walked outside. And it was so humid, we felt damp and clammy in the two minutes it took to reach the bus. The (thankfully) air conditioned bus ride got us to the ship in 45 mins, where sniffer dogs checked the luggage before it was loaded. I was puzzled? What sort of drugs could be produced in England for import into Ecuador? No matter, we were here now. It was 6pm Ecuadorian time, and there were some ice cold drinks waiting for us in the bar.
We sat on the deck, in the warm, muggy evening taking in our surroundings. Guayaquill is a very industrious industrial port, and the cranes and trucks worked nonstop to load and unload ships. This was right next to a small island covered in all sorts of wildlife and on which I managed to loads of large wading birds including Herons, Egrets and Cormorants. Overhead, a thunderous storm was building up, and the air was so clammy our clothes clung to our damp bodies.
Turns out that a couple of the birds I'd seen over on that little island were Roseate Spoonbills. How pink are they?
We ended the day on the top deck at the end of the day. This is looking down on the pool deck.
So this is the start of our Latin America adventure. Awesome!
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