And So It Begins – Our Ecuador Journey

And so it begins, our Ecuador journey starts with trying to arrange a shuttle ride from the Quito airport to the Wyndham Hotel where we will be staying. We were advised to arrange the shuttle to the hotel ahead of our arrival, at 11:58 pm. I called the Wyndham 800 number to get both the confirmation number and number for the hotel. When I tried the confirmation number on the website, it didn’t work. So, I called the Wyndham in Quito or tried to at least. It took me several tries before I discovered that you have to put 011 in front of the phone number for it to work. That’s Quito’s area code.

After my third try, the hotel answered with the person at the other end rapidly answering in Spanish. My Spanish still stinks, so I didn’t understand a word she said but assumed she was welcoming me to the hotel. After confirming that I didn’t speak or understand enough Spanish, she spoke in English beautifully. I only wished I could do the same in Spanish. As we were speaking, and trying to arrange the shuttle, the call started breaking up, badly. We tried for a good five minutes to find a good connection but it never came back. I ended up just hanging up. I think she got the information but I needed to make sure we had a shuttle pickup arranged.  I emailed our friend, Lesley, in Ecuador, to call the hotel from her location and confirm our reservation.

It was a lot of work and time to just arrange a shuttle ride from the airport due to bad connections from the US to Ecuador. 

Gary