Bec's Family Travels: April 2012

I know that I am really far behind in all my posts from Ecuador, but thought I would give an update to say we have made it to Miami.

Our flight out of Ecuador was scheduled for 0620, and being an international flight meant we had to be there 2 hours before. Of course because it was our last night in Ecuador everyone wanted to say goodbye, and both sides of the family made us dinner and set the time for 7pm.

Thank God they live across the road from each other lol.

Needless to say it made for a late night saying our byes, showers and final packing. The alarm was set for 3am.

My stomach had me up at 2:30. Get ready and drive out our suitcase's, say our final final goodbyes and head for the airport.

Get to the airport at 4:30, join the massive lines to check in and then get told that we have to go use the auto check in that are labelled for carry on bag only. I leave everyone in the queue and go to the Auto check in, get to the end and it tells me that it has failed and to go to the front counter.

Back to the line I go and we check in the long way, American Airlines strikes again........ The seats that I had preselected when I brought the tickets were no longer what I had been assigned and we were seated all over the cabin, my requests to have us sitting together were meet with sorry there are no seats left... GRRR

4 hour flight and scrambled eggs ( loaded with capsicum) later. We have arrived in Miami !!!!

Get off the plane, do the ohh I forgot to pee, line up for the toilet and then make our way down to immigration... 2 hours in the line and we have made it to the front, Only to get taken off to a back room because Nando has a common name in those parts and they need to investigate, I ask how long that will take and get the ohh not to long you are a family, so hopefully it will be quick.

We are taken through all these rooms filled with people and families, who all look like they have been here for hours, we get to sit down the kids start complaining they are thirsty, hungry and board.

Crack out the Transformer and PSP's for entertainment, a cranky woman came in and screeched at every kid who was playing with PCs and tables and PSP's to turn them off.

I asked her if she knows how long this process will take and got a gruff no idea before she stormed off.

All the kids in the room switch to listening to music on Ipods, of which on her return they all got told they can't use them either.

So sit and twiddle our thumbs and wait while more and more people are brought through.

We have come to the conclusion that Nando will change his name to Max Power or McLovin when we return to Australia.

Eventually we are called up she asks a whole bunch of questions as to where he was born etc, showed them all our passports and we are free to go.

We go down and are surprised that all our bags actually made it. I was a bit worried as we brought so much food in Ecuador to bring home including coffee, I was sure that would get taken, but it looks like none of the bags were opened.

Collect them all put them through another xray machine and head for AA baggage assistance.

We were again meet with the sorry can't help you it's now with some other area as it has been over 5 days. Ok how do I see them and how do we get reimbursed for the clothes that we have had to purchase in the interim.

"ohh has that been authorised?" well I'm not sure, I was told to keep the receipts and someone would call me to explain what I need to do and the phone call never came. "ohh you can't buy anything until its been authorised"

At this point I get really pissed off and explain it all to her and the fact that every time we had to go into the airport to speak to the AA people there it cost $50 and each time we went in the person we needed was never there, but she will call. Our bag has been missing for over a month and I want the friggin thing back.

she asks if I have the original checking stub which I give to her and after a few minutes she tells me that she has found the bag. It is apparently currently in a holding centre in Texas...

The catch is that its with United not AA, she printed out a piece of paper wrote some more stuff on it that she said will make sense to them. She gives us the direction to United, which happens to be on the other side of the airport, we trek down there with all the bags get there and the chick is just ducking out for 5 minutes, no worries we will wait.

Give her the paper and tell her about the bag and she remembers the bag and explained that they only hold them here for 5 days and then send them to central holding. That's kewl, when can we have it delivered I ask.

Well because our claim is with AA, they have to request to have the bag delivered to them and then they are responsible for getting it to us.

I explained that it was United that had to bag and I own it and have all the documentation and I am requesting it, and she said nope the request has to come from AA. So back down to the other side of the airport to AA to tell them what United has told me only to be told that they cannot request it because the bag is with United holding and not AA holding and I will have to go back to United, its about 5pm at this stage, I wander over to the AA premium baggage section and politely tell the lady there that I'm about to go postal ( see my LMA education has come in soo handy, thanks Tom). I explained that I am not going to go back and forth between the two airlines and i want AA to just request the bag.

She tells me that she is not sure how to do that as she is not sure how to contact the United central storage place, I asked her if she has a general United number that they call to locate lost luggage that maybe she can call and ask them if they can give her the number or the process to request the bag, ok so she tries that and puts through what she thinks is the request for the bag.

We leave there and head to pick up the car ( which is all the way back down near United lol). Catch the new train thing to where all the car hire places are and of course I didn't put which company we had to pick the car up from, so $5 for Internet connection later I get into my email and find that its with Dollar.

Line up in the Dollar queue, hand over documents and stuff and what do you know, we need to shell out more money for the car for tolls as we are in Miami and there are no pay stations, then there was $300 for an extra driver and them another $300 for the insurance as the basic insurance doesn't cover if the car breaks down or gets a broken windscreen etc. GRRR. I explained that we have insurance with our CC and with the travel insurance and hes like that only covers the Excess. so the extra total was close to $800.

I asked to be removed as an extra driver and Nando would do all the driving, which I'm told that can't be done, we can only remove Nando as my CC was used for the imprint. RAHHH.

So have Nando removed sign all the paperwork and we are now just over $500 poorer, and I have to do all the driving.

Get down to collect the car and are told that's the section, pick any car you like we grabbed the biggest looking minivan which was a Dodge I think a voyager, it's a new car but covered in scrapes and scratches, stained carpet and M&M's. I took pics of all the damage, we collapse the back seats pack all the bags in and the kids and head for the exit.

They don't do pre rental inspections like they do back home which I was surprised, now for my printed map to go to Walmart to pick up my sim card...

We get really lost as my directions are from the airport and not the car pick up area, which gave me some good practise around these quiet back streets.

Finally we are on the road we need to be on and make our way to Walmart.

The kids are starving as its 6pm by now and look there is a Maccas, so we hit up the drive through and continue onto Walmart ( The burgers taste the same as home).

We are at Walmart and Nando and I head in and leave the girls with the car and bags, as theft from the car is not covered. Find the section with the mobile phones and there is a guy having a hard time with the sales person as he too is trying to buy a sim with a top up and the sales guy is telling him that he has to also buy a handset.

I chime in and say no that is not correct, we can buy just the sim card, to which the sales dude tells us that he is not sure and doesn't work in this section, but will call the girl who does, so my first American friend Robert from Missouri and I have a bit of a chat while we wait, it's been a while so we ask for her to be paged again and someone comes to tell us that she is on lunch and to come back in an hour, or if we like there is a T mobile store 2 blocks down and one block over, Robert decides that he will go to find the T store and Nando tells me he wants to look for some clothes, so over to the men's section he looks for clothes and I head for shampoo and conditioner and antacid tablets.

We head back to the phone section to be told to give her another 30 mins, so we head to the check outs pay for the stuff along with some pringles, twinkies, onion rings and beef jerky and try to make our way to the T mobile store.

The Beef Jerky is crap its some sweet processed God knows what. I follow the dudes instructions, we find a red lobster, hooters, subway and taco bell, but no T mobile, so I start heading back to walmart to wait for the chick and what do you know I find the T mobile store right across the road from the Walmart...

Go in there talk to the sales dude who is great and he tells me to just get the $50 unlimited plan as my Handset is not a T mobile so prob wont get the 4G speed. He sets me up and we test the phone out by calling Nando's mum at home to tell her we got to Miami ok, which turned into a massive conversation. I told Nando to get off the phone as we needed it to direct us to the hotel and its late.

sit there for a while with me going off at my phone because it wont pick up our location, only to take a deep breath and remember that I had to go in and re enable the data packet stuff. YAY we are on our way.

We get to the hotel at 10pm and our first day im Miami is over :( what a waster day, but it doesn't end there..

The girls are still hungry and they want us to go get them something, but they don't want to go with us. So Nando and I walk down the road for about 10 mins and don't see anything in sight so head back and get the car found a chicken place grabbed some roast chicken and salad and headed back, stopped at a shell to grab some drinks.

And while waiting got to see an old tall skinny dude in a dress, heels and makeup.....

Nando comes out with drinks and we head off, and the car is having a few issues.. the power windows are not working and neither are my blinkers.... Great.... So pull over hit the hazards and reboot the car and everything is working again.. It must run on Windows or something.

Get back to the hotel, hand the car in and head to our room only to find the kids have put that bolt lock on the door and are out cold.. I bag on the door, I call out to them, knock on the door, call the room, throw a mobile in there and call that and still nothing...

The nice security lady came up and broke in for us.... and the girls don't want their dinner any more. Nando and I eat our chicken, corn and Tomatoes ( Its nice to have normal corn again). We catch a glimpse of the weather for it to show that the weather is going to be crap this weekend... Great...

We have just woken up, and I am waiting for my turn in the shower and its 11:15 am.... we were all tired. look out our window at our partial ocean view and it really does look miserable out there... Seaweed up and down the beach...

Well its my turn for the shower and then we are off to explore our hotel, south beach and Miami in general, will whack up some pics later on....

This morning we had to be up early as we are travelling to the north of Ecuador about 2-3 hours north of Quito. We had to be ready to go by 7:30 in the morning. So up early and then the breakfast feast.

We had guanavana juice, emborrajados (plantain bananas with cheese battered and fried) and morocho with milk and dulce de leche.

We then went across the street to Aunty Beatrice's house to round everyone up and get in the cars. And we had a surprise visitor of Uncle Trajano, who also came along for the trip.

I took a family picture in Auntie Beatrice's Garden

It was a three hour trip and the scenery has to be seen to be believed, we took a whole bunch of pictures but they just don't do it justice.

We filled up the cars first and over here on a bad day petrol costs $1.40 - $2.00 per gallon, now there are just over 4 liters in a gallon. And everyone is shocked when we tell them how much we pay per litre at home

Here is a street vendor selling custard apples, I think they were 25c - 50c each

And a street vendor selling watermelon 50c a cup ( and the cups were huge)

Some road works being undertaken to widen the road, to coincide with the opening of the new airport.

A weird looking tree and a public bus

Some watermelon gum to tide us over

The view and a tourist bus in need of some work on the suspension

Mountains

Houses built into the sides of mountains these ones are forward facing but there are many that rear facing and right to the edge of the cliff.. very scary looking to live there

The sign for a cafe called the cafe of the cow.

This is a little park we drove past there are little cubby houses everywhere for kids to play in and you can rent little boats to row around the little lake. very cute.

Someone rowing in the lake

Here is a bull fighting ring, these are all over the place, but apparently there is a season for bull fighting. Not that I would go as it's way to cruel...

Here is a country side road.

This road reminded me of the federal highway, just as you turn off the hume to come home to canberra

The cows and more mountains

I believe that mountain is actually a volcano

One of the lakes that we past

a local sitting on the roadside

The sign to the condor park

We arrive in Otavalo

Our first stop was Otavalo, $2.00 for parking $1.00 to pee and 35c for a pepsi

We are looking around the centre at the street markets.

We then went wandering into the centre of the city to the park. Now you know there is something majorly wrong, when in a country like Ecuador the local parks have free WIFI that is 4G..... Step up Australia.

Took some pictures sitting on the fountain, and tried to throw some kids in the fountain

We got a picture with a local Otovalinan girl, in the traditional dress.

A cute flower that I saw

We then went in search of lunch. Which we had in a resturante in the crater of a volcano in Laguna de Culcocha.
The crater is filled with water so we had some great views. But it took a little driving to get there.

Pictures of the water filled crater

There were some little stalls selling various different things and Sian came across these pens with some interesting and different positions being represented

The covers of the menus for lunch

The view from our table before it started to rain

The menu

Tostada ( cooked corn kernals) very nice

Empenada's de Quesso ( cheese in a pastry deep fried). Have tasted better.

I can't remember what this juice is but it looks like narranjilla

Old school coke bottles that are collected, returned to the factory and refilled.

The kids table

It started to rain

Nando and his uncle Trajano

Johanna and her mum Beatrice

Nando's mushroom chicken, with chips, salad, cooked veggies and really sweet cabbage

my chicken like Nandos but with some rather sad looking bacon instead of mushroom sauce, I ended up swapping plates with Nando cause the bacon sucked... I know cardinal sin, but it really did.

Trajano had a whole fish of some sort

Some of the displays in the restaurant

A South American leach climing on the wall..... EWWW but it was outside near the water.

After lunch it had stopped raining so we decided to take the boat trip out on the water and look around the little islands in the crater and see the sulpher bubbles on the other side.

The sulpher bubbles, The water tempreature where the sulpher bubbles are coming out is significantly warmer than the rest of the crater.

The birds that nest in the reeds of the crater

Before this volcano became a national park, you were able to disembark on the two islands in the middle of the crater and walk around them, there were some little shops and resturants for you to rest at in various places. When it became a national park this stopped, however the building still remain there today.

When we got off the boat it was time to head to Cotacatchi, for some power leather shopping.

The girls modeling the snow hats.

Now a problem that we are finding all over the place is that the general population over here are quite short. Which means we are giants to them. finding any type of shoe is nigh on impossible.

We did manage to find Sian a pair of nice leather boots for $50, and we were all measured up to have some leather jakets made. $600 later for 4 leather jackets made to order and mine coming down past my knees, we are rounded up by Johanna as it is past 6pm and we have a long drive back... There were soo many other shops that we didn't have a chance to go into..

Johanna scored a nice new hand bag, a couple of pairs of boots, and a make up bag all in leather. She is a power shopper, and its easy when all the shoes and boots are made in your size.

On the drive down we passed another volcano, and here are some shots as we drove past.