It's Like America, But South! Day 18

We finally made it home!

After 18 hours stuck at the Quito airport, we flew to Panama City, had a short layover, flew to Dulles, and took an uber from there!

It was a very long 30 hours from the time we left our hotel in Quito until we arrived at our house.

We flew on Copa Airlines and we were not impressed. From checking in, to checking bags, to boarding, to the actual flight...less than great. Obviously we were just so happy to finally be on our way, but it seemed like a bit of a bush league operation.

Our layover in Panama was a mixed bag. On the upside, the lounge had Diet Coke, which I hadn't had in 17 days because none of the places we went have it. After a long and stressful day, that was a major win!

However, after leaving the lounge, we bought a bottle of water to take on the plane and walked to our gate. What did we discover at our gate? A huge long line, an x-ray machine, and an enormous garbage can filled with full water/soda/juice bottles. That's right...when we were all in the SECURE area of the airport, we had to be screened again and everyone had to throw out their drinks THAT WERE PURCHASED IN THE SECURE AREA OF THE AIRPORT so no one was permitted to bring a drink on the plane. What on earth?!? On a day filled with ineptitude and stupidity, that takes the cake.

I slept the entire flight - from before takeoff until we landed - and C, who rarely sleeps on planes, also slept part of the flight, so that speaks to how exhausted we were. When we landed at Dulles, we were the first people at Global Entry, which literally took 30 seconds, and the first people at baggage claim, and the elation of being home cannot be overstated!

We got home at 2:00 am this morning, and left at 10:00 am this morning to drive to Maryland. We dropped my car off at B1 and S1's house and picked up C's car from there (my car is very old with 246,000+ miles on it and we don't want to drive it long distances if we can help it!).

I'm now writing this in the car on our way to Canada, counting the minutes until we see Avalanche!

Since this trip has drawn to a close, I thought I'd do a brief wrap-up!

Not-So-Fun Fact:

My least favorite thing about Quito is the stray dog problem they have. These poor creatures are everywhere. I don't presume to know how the country is addressing this issue, but I certainly hope someone is doing something. It's absolutely heartbreaking. It was not lost on me how we changed our plans and cancelled two countries of our trip just so we could get home sooner to Avalanche, while everywhere I looked in Quito, there were homeless dogs. I was constantly gutted and on the verge of tears.

Fun Facts:

Population of the cities we visited:

San Jose: 340,000

Cartagena: 920,000

Medellin: 4,000,000

Bogota: 11,500,000

Quito: 2,000,000

Elevation of the cities we visited:

San Jose: 3,800 feet

Cartagena: 7 feet

Medellin: 5,000 feet

Bogota: 8,660 feet

Quito: 9,350 feet

Over 17 days, we took seven flights on four different airlines: Southwest (we give it an A; we are big fans), Avianca (we give it a D; their "premium economy" was a joke), Latam (we give it an A; very impressed with their customer service), and Copa (we give it a D and that is generous; nothing about our flights was particularly pleasant and the rating is inflated just because we were relieved to finally be going home).

This trip added three new countries to our travel list - Ecuador was country #31 for us!

We've now been to four continents and all four hemispheres!

My current passport now has 39 stamps in it! (Some are the "exit" stamps when we left a country and one is the cancelled exit stamp courtesy of United cancelling our flight home!)

I am so grateful for technology - Google Translate, Google Maps, and Uber really make getting around places where you don't speak the language relatively easy!

A random observation I had about trying to communicate with people in all five cities (hotel/restaurant/shop employees, Uber drivers, etc.): no one used gestures to try to explain things to us! I found that incredibly strange. Some would just continue to speak to us in Spanish even though it was clear we could not understand what they were saying; others would just stand and stare at us. Maybe it's because I always talk with my hands (and pretty much every teacher I've ever known also does this!), but the idea that people wouldn't pantomime to help explain what they were saying just makes no sense to me! Thankful once again for Google Translate!

Thanks for following on our adventure to South America!

the cancelled exit stamp from when
the United employees collected everyone's passports
in the empty box after our flight was cancelled

why does Copa Airlines number the rows of its
plane like this...apparently rows 11 through 16 are imaginary

view of Panama City from the plane

Happy Tails to you!