It’s pretty intense the things we do for travel. We deprive ourselves of sleep, comfort, regularity, routine, home. We save and plan. But if you have the travel bug, there is not much you can do to suppress it for too long.
We save up our vacation and take time from work. We enlist our friends and family to watch our dog, our house; take us to the airport at god awful hours. Or we semi-abandon our cars in parking lots. We take cars to busses, to trains, to planes, taxis, hikes, bikes. We put ourselves in dangerous places. We visit doctors and get shots. We bring medications and comforts with us. We converse and dream. We research and look at pictures of far away places. Exotic plants and animals; people, food, destinations and places on the way. We plan timing and location, things to do, experiences to be had. We hire guides and talk to strangers. All in the name of Travel.
I have long called myself and experientialist. I have traveled to many of the places that I have on my invisible list. I have done many of the things I would like to do.
This particular trip started with a grand plan, as usual. This plan was a loose plan. There are certain points we need to hit like flights, but the soft center is quite open. Stay tuned for my final review on the when, but my lovely wife, Angela and I both got off work at 5pm on a Friday. Our flight was not scheduled till Monday morning. The same is true for coming home. We arrive on Friday and will still have the weekend before returning to work. This sounds like perfect timing to me, time to get ready, and time to decompress.
I don’t think I can continue without acknowledging my privilege. For me, as a recovering alcoholic, gratitude and privilege tend to be intertwined. I could not speak on my privilege without speaking of my gratitude and versa visa. I don’t know if my gratitude changes my privilege. That is an entirely different blog post.
One of the many many gifts of this trip was that we were able to each take two full weeks off of work. We have weekends bookending our trip. I think that sounds divine. Our first morning started at 1am getting up in order to catch a 5am international flight. I don’t know if things are more relaxed at airports or if people who use airports are just more used to all the hullabaloo. In any case, We were up at 1, on the road by 2, and in the airport by 3 for a flight at 5. I didn’t think much of it until I started to calculate when we would be arriving in Quito, Ecuador. We had a 9 hour layover in Miami, where we decided to hit the beach and get some Cuban food. Sounds simple enough. And before I go into the full story, I want to say that we nailed it. We were back in the airport with plenty of time to catch the flight. Some of you may remember that we were not quite that lucky when leaving Chicago that one time.
I love traveling in big cities and taking public transportation. It’s always like a puzzle that you need to figure out. Our greatest delay in our Miami travels was figuring out how the hell to get out of the airport. Once we nailed that, we found a very friendly public transportation worker, told her our plans for the day, and she guided us on a day pass for the buses. We hit the rail out of the airport, then hopped a bus to Miami Beach. The bus dropped us off two blocks from the beach. Minutes later, we were on the beach staring into the Atlantic Ocean.
We had come directly from the airport, so we were still wearing travel clothes but had our swimming suits with us. We grabbed a little fold up cabana thingy and changed in the sand. A few minutes later, we were in the ocean. The waves were soft and the water was warm but not too warm. The sand on the bottom was gradual enough that we were able to go out quite far and still be able to touch. If that was what got us into a little trouble, it’s hard to say.
At some point, we started seeing translucent objects floating around us. The first one I saw, I let pass without much of a thought. The second looked like some kind of mesh trash. I reached out and touched it. It was smooth like the sting rays we had touched in Chicago. I knew just enough to know that it was a jellyfish and that they stung so I pulled my hand back. At this point I was feeling little stings here and there. All of a sudden we were engulfed in jellyfish. We quickly swam out of the area, but not before Ang was stung in the back of her leg. I was feeling little stings here and there. I’m sure for all the ones we could see, there were probably many more that were smaller. Ang was a pro, very calm and cool. We left the water and she promptly peed on herself, letting it run down the part of her leg that had been stung. I believe she was still feeling pain for a little while, but managed to keep it decently in check. She was always calm.
About the same time, a storm rolled in, so we were forced to pack up and find some shelter. I was kind of grateful for that since I was feeling some smaller stings on my thighs. Jellyfish can be quite small, so I didn’t know if I had any caught in my shorts. We packed up and headed back off the beach to the nearest overhang. You quickly realize that you are out in the open world with no car, no home, etc, when a storm rolls in and you have no shelter.
We found a hotel overhang and hung out while we decided what to do next. As it started to rain harder, I rinsed the salt out of my hair and swim shirt and shorts in a run-off from a roof on the edge of the hotel drop-off spot. Something like that can make you feel so alive. Away from home and rinsing your hair in the clean water Mother Nature is providing. Also the stinging stopped.
After the quick and wild ride of several emotions, I was pretty spent and not fully funcional as we decided what to do next. Cuban food. But where and how do we get there? I searched for an Uber. She suggested a coffee shop to regroup. My solutions was something like $20. Hers was a two minute walk after we got our bearings. Since we each paid something like $2.50 for the day bus pass, $20 was a large increase. Instead we found Starbucks literally across the street. We were not alone either since the storm had sent all the beach goers away. We dried off and searched for a Cuban restaurant.
Two tries and about a mile later, we walked into Bella Cuban Restaurant.
The appetizer we ordered was half and avocado with shrimp and greens. When it arrived at the table, it was massive. Neither of us had ever seen an avocado that big. Main course was a traditional Cuban sandwich with pulled pork and Swiss cheese. I’m sad to say that the pork was dry, but there was a strange sauce on the side that made it manageable. It was something like mayonnaise, but orange. For dessert we ordered caramel flan. It was divine.
A little bit of caramel and the cinnamon from the decoration on the plate made it incredible. I found out quickly with a small test that the dark brown liquid was rum instead of caramel, so I steered clear of that part, but otherwise, marvioso!
At this point, I think the time was creeping into midafternoon. Our flight was at 6:57. We wanted to be back to the airport about 4:00. We had already walked about a mile with backpacks and such, so the nearest bus stop back to the airport sounded like a plan.
There is a similar bus in Mexico City, maybe for folks just like myself that have a layover and want to see the city. It goes from the airport to downtown in the touristy spot and back. Again we hopped the 150 bus right back to the airport with minimal stops. One direction was about 40 minutes and again for about $2.50, beats a $40 Uber for these travelers any day.
Back to the airport and through security again just so we could lay on a hard dirty floor and wait for our next flight. Ahhh, travel. We were asked by speaker and Angela’s great detection skills to change gates where we did more laying until boarding. Boarding an airplane is always an adventure in itself to stow your crap in the overhead and find a tiny little seat in this cramped space. Our first flight was half empty so we got our own rows, but this one was full, and longer.
Turns out that the flight was about an hour longer than scheduled because we had to divert between two of the storms coming in to Florida.
Not really knowing any of this, we sat on this plane wondering, has it been four hours? Did the time change back from East Coast time? We were both too tired to calculate it. Once we arrived in Quito, another burst of energy got us off the plane a to wait for our luggage and find our friends who awaited with smiles and cameras.
Their foresight from doing this with other friends paid off as we settled in for the night at a local hostal ten minutes from the airport. The time then was about 12:30. After getting up at 1 am to leave from Kansas, it was very rewarding to fall asleep in Quito, Ecuador.
Not as rewarding as waking up to this view, but rewarding all the same.
Adelante, Ecuador. Love, Holly
The Isms of the Ic 