After waiting around in the Lima airport for 5 hours, we went to recheck our bags only to find out that our flight to Quito had been canceled. The airlines thought it would be fine for us to be delayed for an entire day. What they didn’t know was that we had a flight to the Galapagos five hours after we landed in Quito. Since we are dealing with separate airlines, there wasn’t much we could do. Also considering it was Sunday night at 7pm, we were really stuck. They did put us up in a nice hotel, provided the cab ride to and from and breakfast and dinner. The hotel turned out to be quite luxurious. King bed, 2 TVs, a wet bar, jacuzzi bathtub, the whole works. We even got to see the end of the Oscars.

We had demanded to get to Quito earlier than 24 hours after our scheduled arrival time and we were re-booked on a different airline, so we were back in a cab at 9am to sit and wait at the airport again. Once our travel agent opened in California, we called them to try to help us out. They were able to reschedule our flight for the 10th, two days later than our original plan. Good thing we hadn’t booked any of those all inclusive cruises or something.

Now we have two nights and one day to spend in Quito with no idea what to do. We happened to pick a hostel that was right in the middle of the happening “new city” (as opposed to the old historic center). The location was great, but the people working there were not too helpful. So we walked around the trendy cafe area our first night and got great deals on Cuba Libres and mojitos. We took the bus to the historic district that next day. We had read that Quito was kinda dangerous so we didn’t even bring our camera with us. We also tried to talk to travel agents about last minute deals and tours of the islands. Given our short stay and the fact that we want to dive, no one was offering what we had in mind.

This morning we were up at 5:30 to return to the airport and we are currently on the airplane to the islands.

Strange fun fact…Ecuador decided to change their currency to US Dollars in 2000. All of the paper money is USD and the coins are a mix of old centavos and US change. All the denominations are the same and are treated as being worth the same amount. However, here they use a lot of 50 cent pieces instead of paper dollars. Three dollars in change gets really heavy!