12 or so hours in Tababela, Ecuador aka the home of the new Quito airport

We arrived!  

After a full day of travel, including a long lay over in Miami, we landed late into the brand new Quito Airport.   The boys were great travelers and even endured a long wait in the customs line with little to no complaining.  We cleared the gates and Finn immediately spotted my name on a sign and we were greeted by a very friendly man named Jose.  Jose spoke English flawlessly and even told us about his study abroad experience in the 70's living in Memphis.  He lived there when Elvis died.  Awesome.

So when I booked our hotel, I made sure to tell them I wanted the location closest to the hotel.  Well this created a lot of confusion because there are virtually no hotels near the new airport.  I'll even go a step further and say there is little sign of life surrounding the new airport including lights and paved streets.  SO Jose explains that the new hotel is under construction and he would be happy to take us there to just to see, however, we could always continue on to the other location near the old airport an hour away.  We easily opted for the closer location, just 10 minutes away.  So we drove on through the endless dark and desolate road and as we continue on, the road becomes less a road and more just dirt packed into ruts and ripples and there are no lights anywhere and I could almost read John's mind....yet finally we arrive at a farm and we are greeted by two friendly Saint Bernard s and Silvia the owner, and she and her Cuban family are just lovely and so warm and welcoming and all is right with the world once again.  The next morning we rose at the crack of dawn to the sound of roosters cock a doodle doo-ing, planes thundering overhead, and Finn pleading to open the door to look at the mountains. Silvia fixed us a lovely breakfast and we spent our time out by the beautiful in-ground unheated pool and hot tub and playing soccer in the make shift soccer fields before heading back to the airport to board the flight to Cuenca, our new city for the next two months. And finally some commemorative photos of the first hours of our trip.

XO Shannon