OK. well, a big hello to all you guys and dolls in la la land. It's flying day today. The big question is: Will they allow me to leave this country and more so will Ecuador allow me in to their country??? For me it was up at 3am and at LAX by 5am. L.A. to Miami was a smooth flight the first half wasn't bad there was scenery out the window and just as the clouds started to obscure the view, the in-flight movie started. How to eat fried worms. Right up there with green eggs and ham. Actually it sounded pretty appetizing. You should try them. So, here I sit in the Miami Airport thinking of eating worms while I am eating Mexican food. I asked, worms aren't on the menu. Nor was any thing good except the margaritas. I'll try not to stumble out of here.
Well I have made it. The flight from Miami to Quito is shorter than the one from Los Angels to Miami. Once again I had some what empty flight so plenty of room to streach out and no 400 pound man squeezed in the middle seat next to me. The best part is the customs agents let me pass without a body cavity search. Thank goodness for that. I neither have nor want a proctologist, thank you very much. I have even managed to survive a taxi ride from the airport to check into the coolest little hostal here in Quito. It's called the Posada Del Maple. Maple is pronounced mop-a-lee. Anyways, I got myself a little suite which includes a private balcony with my very own hammock for lazing about. I intend to put it to some good use while I am here. This place should be great, it has a central location to the city and everything important is fairly close by. You can look it up on the web posadadelmaple.com. The website doesn't do this place justice. I will take some photos to show or post later.
So this taxi. Well what do I say??? Whoa... It was a mini van in the extreme sense of the word. No actually is was a 6 passenger micro van. This thing made mini vans in the United States look.... Well, HUGE... This van as cool as it was made a VW Beetle look roomy. I think it was powered either by lawn mower or gerbil I am not sure which. Kids power wheels have bigger wheels on them. The driver a local to Quito was a nice guy. He made sure to make small talk. We spoke both in my broken spanish and his broken english both at the same time so we were equally confused. Of course he threw in that he a couple of kids at home. I can understand the tack tick, it gets you a bigger tip from any sorry sap that falls for it. But, not from me. It was the near running down of a police officer coming out of the airport and the cop not blinking a eye as my driver jams the breaks to avoid flattening him. That did it for me. Needless to say no trip to jail for me yet, though at that moment I thought it may have been forthcoming. Just the way to start a vacation. Run over a cop in the cross walk. Good luck getting out of that one, right? I can hear it now, "Oh, sure you were just a passenger I don't believe you, you look guilty." Don't doubt for a minute my legal eagle cousin didn't pop in my head. Though, I would hate to get the bill for his services. He isn't cheap like me.....
