Because we were going to visit several countries in South & Central America and there were very few direct flights from Toronto to any of these places, we had decided to make Miami our central in and out base. The fact that we had enough Fly-points to get a free flight from Toronto to Miami and back ( returning June 21,2012) sealed the decision.
We had also decided to spend one night there and have a pleasant break between airlines.
We got to our hotel on Miami Beach shortly before dark and woke up the next moning to beautiful views. This is looking out our Penthouse floor ocean-front window.
And looking in both directions along the beach.
I hadn't been to Miami Beach in many years and had forgotten how pretty it was!
We left for our flight to Quito, Ecuador at 2PM. We had somehow manged to get a business class flight on LAN Airlines for very little extra and it was so well worth it.
Our seats had at least 5 feet between the row in front and went down to a full sleeping position along with a back massager- how great was that. Of course, it was the middle of the afternoon and only a 3 1/2 hour flight so I never did take advantage of this treat.
We landed in Quito on time where we had to go through Ecuador Immigration & Customs ( no problem) get our luggage and find our way from the international terminal to the local terminal - that was a problem as the signs were confusing or non-existant. We finally got a porter to take our luggage and walk us to the correct location- well worth the $3 tip. Our flight from Quito to Guyaquil was uneventful other than the thunderstorm that accompanied us most of the trip. In Guyaquil, a $6 cab ride to us to our downtown hotel. Our hotel room was great and after a couple of cervazas at the hotel restaurant, we retired for the night.
Please remember that we speak little/ to none Spanish yet but everything went very smoothly.
The church and park across from our hotel.
With lots of Iguanas
And very clean downtown streets where we walked around for awhile searching for an ATM
At 11AM we were picked up by Carlotta who spoke as much English as we spoke Spanish- LOL. The drive to Salinas was approximately 2 hours along a good 4 lane highway. The scenery was not very pretty- very dry farmland/ desert with some weird cacti that to us looked like Organ Cactus on a stick! My AZ friends will be able to form a picture. It looked a lot like Arizona- that very boring section south of Gila Bend on the way to Puerto Penasco.
We arrived at our apartment- 2 bedroom, bathroom, nice kitchen, big balcony, however crappy view! Oh well, we're one block from the main beach so no problem.
Our balcony
After settling in a bit, we walked to the local Mercado- a reasonably sized grocery store where we loaded up on essentials- wine, beer, coffee, water ect. and then took a walk along the beach.
No comments:
Post a Comment