A day in the life of a traveller

Up until now most blog entries have shown the beautiful places we get to visit and people we meet along the way.

To try to dispel some of the beliefs that this travelling business is all beaches relaxing drinking and partying I am writing this blog.

Today we are travelling to Quito the capital of Ecuador, this is due to be a very long and arduous day! In total the trip will consist of the following transport:

1 x Local bus in Rio

1 x Airport shuttle bus Rio

1 x Flight from Rio to Buenos Aires

1 x Flight from Buenos Aires to Lima

1 x Flight from Lima to Quito

1 x Taxi to the hotel in Lima

We expect the day to last about 19 hours….

So our day began getting out of bed at 7 am, we had decided to spend our last night in Rio drinking Caprinhas, probably not wise!

After a quick shower, we started the tedious task of packing our bags again! we go through this process every few days on average and it is a massive pain in the arse! In the below pic I'm packing my sleeping bag liner, always a joy!

During breakfast our kind hostel staff member Vidar gave us the lonely planet for Ecuador! Essential! After breakfast we left our hostel and walked up the road to our first piece of transport the local bus, the bus was due at 8 am which means rush hour, so there are no seats for the 30 minute journey and we have big backpacks for people to have to climb over! We also missed the bus as Sarah left her lunch in the fridge!

After the ride to the city center we had to make a 15 minute walk to the domestic airport where we could get the shuttle bus to the International airport. A 15 minute walk is ok, however when its 8.30, 20 degrees and you have a 20 kg bag to carry it’s a little more taxing!

Navigating Rio rush hour traffic

The airport shuttle bus

Sarah with our lunch!

So we safely managed to navigate our way to the International airport in Rio where we would board our first of 3 flights for the day. We now had to check in our bags and say goodbye to them until Quito where we were assured they would arrive. This leads to the well known BSA syndrome (Bag separation anxiety) this is an ailment suffered every day by all travellers worrying where their bags are or who is trying to steal them!

Flight to Buenos Aires 11.25 let hope that ash cloud stays away??

 So the first flight was due to be 3 hours and left 30 minute late a great start to the day! However we arrived in Buenos Aires without much drama.

Clear views of Rio

We were now told not to go through customs but to wait in the departure lounge for a representative from our airline to appear, we were stood in the terminal with no boarding passes for 3 hours until someone finally appeared 30 minutes before our flight was due to leave!! and we had not even spoken to the airline at this point....stress ...stress.....stress!!! Sarah however was hard at work balancing the books and telling me I couldn't have a drink, we were broke. 

James was not happy about this and went to sleep occupying as many seats as he could.

However once again everything seemed to work out in the end and we got our boarding passes with no problems, on to Lima...3rd country of the day.

Destination Lima

Now this point was the biggest stress of the day, we only had 56 mins to change planes to get our flight to Quito. So we had to get off the plane, run to the security area where they want to rescan our carry on bags etc...The queue was huge! Everyone was pushing and shouting about how they had to catch a connecting flight, I have never seen such a big queue at security.


When we finally managed to get to the scanners the jobs worth made me go through the scanner about 5 times as the buttons on my trousers were setting the alarm off.


We arrived at the departure gate with only 10 mins until the flight left, but had our bags made it????? BSA (see above)

Final flight this one was only 3 hours, easy!

You need to be aware that the clocks had changed at this point so we lost 2 hours it was really 11.56 when we took off to us! This can be noted in the following picture.

So we landed in Quito at 12.10 Quito time 2 to us, and we were greeted with a 40 minute customs line to get our passport stamped, 30 of these minutes were spent behind a group of very loud excitable Americans....What everyone wants at 2 am.

We got through customs to be reunited with our bags!!!Yes we were all together again, it was a very joyous moment.

All we had to do now was get a taxi to our hostel, we had the address, we even drew a map from google maps, we were home and dry! :-) We even had the lonely planet to back it up. So we found a friendly taxi driver who knew exactly where we were going...........

We drove around Quito for over an hour as the driver refused to admit defeat, by this point it was nearing half past 3 on our time and I was about to go mad, finally I told him to forget it and take us anywhere. At this point  he took us to his "very special friend" for a great deal. I actually beleive now this entire thing was a scam but at 4 am I didn't care.

We checked in to the in expensive very nice hotel and asked the receptionist if we could have a glass of water....They didn't have any water? Can I buy any water??? No....Great

So at 4 am I am messing about with water purification tablets so I can have a drink of water, The reason I was doing this was we are now at almost 3000 meters and I think altitude sickness had set in :-( Sarah however was fine!

We arose early the next day, after only 5 hours sleep. The hotel had no breakfast and no internet access, so we decided we would go to hunt out some clean water, breakfast and wireless access (at least we could use our newly acquired Lonely Planet to navigate us, as the hotel had no map).

As well as the lonely planet we rely on web recommendations to book hostels, so internet is essential to get a good hostel! We wondered into the town found some food and the net, we then spent the next 3 hours wondering between hostels, looking at scummy rooms and walking out with the desire to wash!! We eventually checked into a hostel, conveniently located next to Pacha....hmmm..... We write this blog listening to pumping music and altitude headaches. At least we have water!

Tomorrow we are going to Spanish school for 4 hours for the next 5 days!

So I hope this gives an insight into the trials and tribulations we will often go through getting from one city to another.