Just a friendly reminder that these stories already happened...
3/23/24
It’s Day 2 of our Ecuadorian adventure and by the time today is over, we’ll actually be standing on Ecuadorian soil! Crazy stuff, right?
I started my day off with my watch alarm buzzing away on my
wrist at 6:50 am. That could only mean one thing. It was time for Duolingo.
After all, I need all the practice I can get if I’m going to spend a week in a
Spanish-speaking country. It’d probably be nice to actually understand some of
the language instead of just pretending to do so.
Once Andy woke up for the morning, we got dressed and headed
to the McDonald’s next door to grab some breakfast. It was actually pretty
funny to see that five other members of our team had the exact same thought
process. Once we were finished eating, it was time to head back to the hotel
and pack up for our trip back to the Miami airport. Just like the prior night, it
would take two trams to get us to the airport with the same people waiting for
the second tram.
At the airport, we checked our bags in for our flights and
headed to security. Unfortunately, the lines in Miami aren’t quite as efficient
as in Kansas City so we were waiting for quite some time. By the time we were
finally putting our shoes back on, we only had about an hour before boarding. After
finding our terminal, I proceeded to join Jamie for a walk around the airport
to kill some time before boarding our plane.
The thing about traveling though is that nothing ever goes
quite according to plan. In this instance, the torrential downpour outside was
certainly wreaking havoc on our travel plans. In fact, it was so bad that we
ended up delayed for at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half. After a while
of sitting on an airplane, you end up losing all semblance of time. That’s especially
true when you don’t have headphones that sync up with the airplane’s media
system. Finally, the time came to take off. However, we found ourselves
mentally preparing to spend a night in Panama as we expected there would be no
way for us to make our connecting flight.
When the plane landed in Panama, I learned something about
airplane etiquette in other countries. Rather than patiently waiting for each
row to disembark, people instead start shoving and heading towards the exit as quickly
as they can. While all of this was happening, an announcement was made that our
plane to Manta had been held due to there being at least 25 people on the
delayed flight from Miami. So with that renewed hope, we booked it down to the
gate we would be leaving from and boarded to the stares of many unhappy passengers.
Although, I probably would have been unhappy too if I had been waiting to leave
as long as they had.
If I’m being honest, our flight to Ecuador was more than a
little bumpy. At one point it seriously felt like our plane was a roller
coaster. Crazy, right? Soon enough though, we arrived in Manta and departed the
plane via stairs on the runway. Seriously. One of my goals in life has always
been to get on and off a plane via stairs on the runway and now I can truthfully
say it’s happened. We then successfully navigated through customs and retrieved
our luggage where I was dismayed to learn that my suitcase wheels had partially
melted at some point during the day. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to roll
a suitcase with melted wheels but it doesn’t work well at all!
After exiting the airport, we were met by Steve and Robin, a
pair of missionaries in Ecuador, and a pretty cool bus equipped with tons of
neon lights to take us to Hacienda Los Correos, the camp where we would be
staying for the week. After dropping off our luggage in our little cabins, we
boarded a pair of vans to head to a rotisserie chicken restaurant for a family-style
dinner. In case you’re wondering, it was seriously one of the tastiest things I’ve
eaten in quite some time. After dinner, it was time to load up again and return
to the camp for bedtime. After all, tomorrow is going to be a full day!
#DaddyWrite
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