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Day 97 of 97 - September 3rd: Lima, Peru to Vancouver, Canada via Los Angeles, USA

Wow, it's the very last day. And in the Lima airport at 1:30am, my flight left the terminal. I got in the plane, really exhausted, and happy to see a complimentary blanket and pillow. I figured this plane would be big (with how far it had to go), but it really surprised me how new and modern it was. Each row had 9 seats and each seat had a new, touch screen display. The safety announcement was played on it initially, but this screen could be used for any movie or game i wanted. Didn't exactly use it to the fullest though - as soon as the in flight snack was given out, I ate, then fell right asleep. The man next to me offered me his dessert, which i found funny since that was kind of my thing during ecuaexperience. I gravoled myself to sleep for several hours, then when breakfast came around, the guy beside me was kind enough to wake me up. After eating, we talked for a good while about my trip and his upcoming destination (Shanghai). When we landed, I found out by looking at the logo on his bag that he was a doctor. That gave us more to talk about. We carried on together for the next little while. On the way to customs, he was questioned by a chinese-american officer, and afterwards, we joked that he probably just wanted something from shanghai. As it turned out, after the first customs check, I needed to grab and recheck my bag. Good thing I checked. My bag was then rescanned before I was allowed to leave, but of course all was good. We had separated at this step, but we were at different terminals anyway, so from here on out, i would have to hope for good, reliable wifi to save the day. I printed out my ticket to vancouver and then went through another extensive bag check before continuing. The whole fire drill lasted 2 hours in total - and this was just a connecting flight!! Lucky me, the wifi was perfect so i was at least amused during my long layover in LA. Just as I was about to board my final flight, I went to txt home to say i was getting on. As I was about to press send, sure enough, I get a call from mom. Looks like we're close enough now for our minds to sync. I had my last long distance convo with her before getting on, then got in my seat by the window. Just as the plane was being taxied out, the bar securing the taxi broke. So we had to wait around for some 15 minutes for them to inspect the plane and get a new taxi, but it was fine since our pilot made up the time in the air. In a little over 2 hours, i was seeing familiar scenery out the window - greater vancouver. I'm pretty sure I set a new land speed record through customs and baggage. After nearly 24 hours in transit, I was ready to be out of an airport. And thus, my trip came to an end with the long awaited hugs of my parents at the arrivals area. I had my sister and dog, along with lasagna and cake waiting for me at home. And now, as I write my last words, I have my nice soft bed to appreciate. This has been a summer of a lifetime for me. I've learned so many things and I imagine that I'm a bit different than when I left Canada 3 months ago (hopefully changed for the better). I've met so many people and I hope to reunite with all of them again in the future. As a final word, make sure to never forget the countless blessings we are given each day. We don't need bars on our windows and broken glass lining brick walls around our houses. You don't sit at a bathroom stall each day, charging 50 cents for toilet paper. We live in a country with a comfortable middle class majority, instead of a chasm between rich and poor. Yet there is genuine happiness, generosity, and kindness to south americans, regardless of if they are well off or in need. I never met a person that i disliked in any of these countries. If even the poorest of people that we built houses in ecuador can be happy with so little, perhaps all we need to be happy is to step back and realize what we have. Anyway, here it goes - THE END!

Glitches

Day 96 - 2 de septiembre: Quito, Ecuador to Lima, Peru

What a great feeling to finally sleep in. Woke up at a little past 9, had a shower and casually made my way down for breakfast. Same food as usual, but it's really good stuff here. After eating, I had a bit of a task ahead of me - having to repack everything for my flight today. Keep in mind, I arrived in south america with a full bag, but now, i have enough stuff for two pieces of luggage (although, my job at the car lot has given me experience in finding room for things without the space to do it). It was easier than I expected and before long, I was checking out of the hotel. I had 4 hours to kill before i needed to get a taxi for the airport, so the hotel was able to put my bags in storage for me. I took off to the main square and sat myself down in an outdoor table of a coffee shop with the ecuadorian version of an iced cappuccino. I strategically chose this place for the free wifi, and used it to make some calls and browse the internet. They also had a band off the street that decided to perform here. I hung out here as long as the wifi lasted (pretty sure they kicked me off after a while). Then wandered around a bit. Eventually i had lunch at a place in the square. They had a 3 course special for cheap, so i jumped on that which filled me up. Afterwards, I slowly made my way back to the hotel and chilled on their wifi for about an hour until i needed to go. The hotel called a taxi for me and soon enough, I was on my way. I heard him radio the other taxis, asking for a traffic report (it was rush hour right now). It must have been pretty rough since he decided to take me through a completely different route. I went through rich areas, poor areas, alongside cliffs and over rivers and experienced all kinds of traffic but eventually, I did make it to the airport. I would typically be worried about this change in route, but the way was well signed to the airport. He made some pretty good time, as do all taxis here. At times, he was weaving through traffic like it was mariokart. Still in one piece. Once arriving, I waited a good while in the baggage drop line and when I arrived up front, i was pleased to see that my bag was just on the maximum weight - good to go. The lady said my bags would go straight to vancouver, but we'll see. I don't quite trust these checkin staff. Arriving at the terminals, I was given a slight heart attack. The screens said that my flight was delayed 3 hours, which would make me miss my next flight! i looked everywhere for someone from LAN airlines, but when I next checked the screen, my flight was back to normal - must have been a glitch. The terminals had weak wifi, in which i communicated back home with scrabble chat. I found a place with good spaghetti for dinner, and before long, I was flying to Lima. I stayed awake on this ride so that i could sleep on the next one. When i arrived, the screen was messing with me again - my flight which wasn't for hours said "last call for boarding". It fixed itself eventually, but that was the most status screen glitches i had seen ever and both were the same day! I had three hours until my next flight to LA with no wifi in the lima airport, but somehow by walking around and playing phone games, i amused myself until the flight. Time for the longest flight of my trip - we'll see how it goes. 

Saying goodbye to my room

And then there was one

Day 95 - 1 de septiembre: Quito, Ecuador

I decided last night that I wanted to explore the city today. So, before I left the handful of our group left in Quito, I told them that i'd be at their hotel at 8:30 the next morning if anyone wanted to join me. After another great breakfast here at my hotel, I walked the empty, sunday streets to the Nu house hotel lobby. A small group of my friends came down for breakfast, and once everyone had eaten, I had 3 of them with me to see the first site. We took a taxi to the TeleferiQo; a cable car which takes you up the side of Pichincha Volcano here in Quito. Since there was no traffic on the roads, we got their fast and were surprised that this decent cab ride was only $5. I want these cabs back home! Anyway, we got in the ticket line and paid $8 for the gondola ride up - it was a beautiful view of Quito the whole way which reminded me very much of the Grouse mountain gondola which gives you a view of Vancouver. As we approached the top, we realized that we really didn't think when putting on t-shirts for a windy mountaintop. It was kind of chilly thanks to the gusting wind, however we countered that with hot chocolate from a cafe up top. After getting several pictures from the viewpoints, we noticed a higher up lookout that we decided to climb up at a decent pace. Didn't actually realize until later that we were 4100m above sea level here and really should have been taking it easy. No wonder we had crummy cardio. At the top, there were actually a couple llamas, but for the most part, the city view was what we were looking at. It was getting to be close to 11 now and one of our group had to leave for the airport at 12. We took the tram back down, flagged down a taxi and got ourselves back to the hotel for 11:30. We waited in the hotel lobby to say goodbye to the couple of people leaving at this time, then the bulk of our group went for lunch. In a cafe/restaurant in the main square, I actually got to order myself some lasagna which was great. I went to pay with visa, but you needed a $15 dollar minimum, so I paid for another as well, and got myself some needed change from them for the taxi. Not too long after lunch, I wanted to go to the last big site of the city (that was recommended to me) - the historic city centre. At 2pm when everyone was forced to check out of Nu House, I had a couple people who were eager to join me. We got in another $5 taxi and were taken right into a historic old plaza. This place had a parliament building, cathedral and tons of people packed around. As cool as this place was, it seemed to also just be a casual hangout place for a lot of locals. After taking in this plaza, we continued on to see one of the more famous churches: la compañia. This huge church would have been impressive just by it's size and design on the outside, but of course, they had to go all out. The inside was entirely covered in gold! Crazy, intricate design covered in shinning precious metal just kept you looking everywhere. There were tons of statues, paintings and all sorts of art. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed so you'll just have to take my word on this. We then continued on through all sorts of random streets. Old architecture was everywhere so we really weren't needed to go to specific sites. They had a statue of an angel of some sort on top of one of the hills, so when it was in view, we all took pics of it. We came across a couple of museums during our walk, but one didn't look all that interesting and one closed early on us. No matter, the last thing we definitely had to see was their giant basilica. We hadn't really heard much about it, however you could see it from kilometres away and it looked worth checking out. Our map took us up a huge, steep hill but we eventually made it here. It was massive and had two main towers, one being a clock tower. I managed to get a signature picture of me with it - if you saw my Europe pics, you'd recognize it. We also found out that for $2, you could climb the towers. An elevator took us 3 floors, then we were stairing it. As we got higher and higher up the clock tower, the stairs became sketchier and sketchier. Eventually it was a thin, metal, spiral staircase that took us through the clock and up to the bell tower. Again, we got stunning views of the city. It turned out that afterwards, we could climb the second tower, but this would be more of a challenge. We first had to cross a rickety, wood bridge inside the building then climb a ladder in the dark. This took us to a platform outside the tower. From here, we had to climb the tower from the outside, with a metal staircase nearly as steep as a ladder. They put chicken wire around the stairs to somewhat reinforce it, however it definitely wouldn't pass north american safety standards. Slowly but surely, we made it. I took so many photos of viewpoints today that my phone was running low. One of my group had to conquer a decent fear of heights today, and she did a good job, no thanks to the other guy that looked over one of the viewpoints and exclaimed, "that's a fatal fall". Lol. Anyway, by 5pm when the basilica closed, we walked down to a main street and caught a taxi back home. We actually got a better rate back, perhaps because it was an older taxi. After reuniting with the group in the lobby and hanging out all together for a bit, we went to dinner for the last time as a group. We had subway sandwiches, then spent our last hour hanging out before the bus came and took the last of my companions away. I waved goodbye, then made my way back to the hotel. It was a weird feeling to be alone again after all this time, but i'll be leaving tomorrow so it will be fine. I watched some english movies into the night which was great since the internet was down until 10. Set my alarm for 10pm as a safety, but I do want to sleep in somewhat.

Gondola

One of the views

My morning group

Plaza grande

La compañia

Basilica

Signature ic

Another city view