Flying to Ecuador

We walked to Plaza de Espana to save on one metro interchange to get to the airport.  Our nearest metro would require two changes instead of one.  It was much easier than our arrival trip except that at peak hour, it was very busy.

We hadn’t used our Tourist Pass (for the metro and other public transport) as much as we would have liked.  It turned out that most of the places we wanted to visit were within walking distance. I think we would have saved a couple of Euros buying just individual tickets.

Bagdrop at Madrid’s T4 was easy with very little queueing.  The signage was a little hard to understand at first … the monitors were showing flights which shouldn’t use the counters (eg. flights that were nearly closing) but otherwise all counters were available to all Iberia flights.

Security was swift as well.  Non-Schengen flights seem to depart from T4S (the satellite terminal) which required a very long ride in an underground train at the end of which we cleared immigration very swiftly as well.  Madrid’s T4 is certainly one of the nicer and better-functioning airports I’ve used in the recent past!

We spent over an hour at the lounge having some light breakfast before heading to our departure gate.  There was already a large queue over an hour prior to our 1200 departure.  Having seats right at the front, we joined the last boarding group and managed to secure some room in the lockers before we closed up for departure.

The Airbus A340-600 was nice and quiet compared to other planes of the same generation.  The Iberia onboard experience was good as well until the pre-landing “light meal”.  It turned out to be a stingy filled roll with a yoghurt and muffin.  Seems a bit measly for a 10h55 flight.

Anyway, we were lucky to get this flight on reward tickets.  We had booked 9 months in advance and I guess the airline didn’t expect the flight to have been so popular that it was chockablock.

As we descended over the Andes, the area seemed pretty green.  Closer to the airport, I was surprised to see the roads and buildings to be of a very high standard.  I expected Ecuador to be a little ramshackle like Bolivia but it appears to be more like Peru with some very well-built infrastructure and buildings, mixed with others that are less so.

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We landed at 1700 and immigration was quick and painless.  Kim’s bag took forever to get out.  The luggage delivery wasn’t slow but there were so many passengers on the big plane and there was lots of luggage and some mighty big ones too.

The hotel’s appointed taxi had a runner airside holding a board with my name.  She led us to the vehicle and we set off at 1800 for Los Andes Suites in the old town.  The ride took about 50 minutes and we saw awesome views of Mount Cotopaxi with snow and clouds near the top of the cone.

For some reason, I had thought that Quito was much higher, perhaps like Cuzco or La Paz.  I’m so bad with numbers at times, I must have got it wrong.  We were very pleased to realise from the Airshow screen on board the plane that we were only at 2378 m (7801 ft).  It was a relief as we’ve had trouble with altitude sickness before and it is unpredictable:  once I had it and Kim was fine and the next time, it was the opposite.

We got to our accommodation just before 1800.  Tired and with our tummies on Madrid time, we had some tea and biscuits before retiring around 2000 (0300 Madrid time).