I arrived in Cotacachi last Sunday morning at 1:30am. It had been quite a day. My first flight left DFW Airport at 1pm Saturday and I had a 3 hour layover in Houston before my 5:30 flight. There was quite a bit of turbulence over Central and South America, which always freaks me out a little but outwardly I try not to show it. We landed in Quito around 11:50pm.We have flown 3 different airlines from DFW to Ecuador.
We’ve flown American Airlines twice, which goes through Miami; AA gets you into Quito around 8pm and the return flight leaves Quito at 8am. Delta goes through Atlanta; that flight gets you into Quito at 11:40 and returns from Quito at 12:45 am. This time I flew United, which as I said earlier got me in around midnight. My return flight leaves Quito at midnight.
When Curtis comes down in a few weeks, he’ll be flying American. That means it will be easy for me to meet him at the airport and get back to Cotacachi at a reasonable hour. However, he’ll have to be at the airport at 6am for his return flight…that does not sound like fun at all! We might have to think about staying in Quito the night before, although there are no hotels close to the airport so we would probably have to get up just as early if we did.
Anyway, back to my arrival. I sat at the back of the plane, so I was one of the last people off. The line going through immigration was extremely long for us extranjeros; it took almost an hour to get though immigration. Of course, then I didn’t have to wait for my checked bag…it was there waiting for me. A quick trip through customs and I was out of there!
Before leaving home, I had enrolled in a Spanish language program (http://www.instituto-superior.net/). Someone from the school was at the exit from customs waiting for me and then it was just a short walk to the car.
Our Apartment Building in Cotacachi
The Quito airport is brand-spanking new. It opened in February 2013. It has not gotten good reviews, but if you arrive at midnight on an international flight, no worries. There were no crowds to deal with and we didn’t have to ride a dreaded bus from the plane to the terminal. There is only the one road out of the airport, and you actually have to go south before you head back north, but it’s a new road and in the middle of the night there’s not much traffic! It was a slow ride, as you go through mountains and there are a lot of curves. But I’m betting a taxi driver would have made the trip a lot faster, because they’re like bats out of hell. I guess I’ll find out when I go pick up Curtis in a couple of weeks.
I finally settled into the apartment (after walking through with the manager) around 3am. The roosters were already crowing when I went to bed. I spent a pretty restless night, as I’m really not used to hearing roosters. Sunday morning I woke up to discover there was no hot water; I decided against a cold shower and just headed out for my first grand adventure of the trip.
The bus stop in the main square in Cotacachi
The first order of business was buying supplies. I went to the market, which was extremely busy because Sunday is market day in Cotacachi. I bought supplies to make potato soup, and also got essentials like canned tune, coke, water, toilet paper, paper towels, etc. I was not able to find a couple of items I wanted in the stores in Cotacachi, so I decided to take the bus to Ibarra and go to Super Maxi, which is more like our grocery stores in the states.
Taking the bus is pretty simple. You go to the bus station and find the one with the name of the city you want to go to. Also, there’s a guy from each bus yelling out the name of the town they are headed to. You hop on your bus and find a seat. Once the bus is moving, a person (normally a guy but not always) comes to take you money. The ride to Ibarra is 45 cents and it takes about half an hour to get there.
The buses stop a lot. There are actual bus stops, but really you can get on and off wherever you want to. When we were almost to my stop, a guy sat down next to me and started talking to me (in Spanish, of course, so I never understood what he was saying) and it distracted me so that I missed my stop. I ended up at the bus station. I had to get my bearings so I’d know which way to walk to get to the Super Maxi, but it wasn’t too difficult because Imbabura Volcano is pretty prominent and easy to recognize. I had about a mile walk back to the Super Maxi and made it with no trouble.
Great view of the Cathedral from the kitchen window.
I finished my shopping, hopped back on the bus, and went back to Cotacachi. But still no hot water. It took me five days to convince the apartment manager that I had to have hot water. Screaming every time I got in the shower was just not going to work. It’s still not as hot as I would like it to be, but it’s bearable. Finally, I’m settled in.