Day 0--Stillwater to Quito

FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2013
Stillwater to Quito
1:11 Dep Tulsa arr Houston 2:43
4:15 pm depart Houston arr Quito 10:40 pm
Night at Quito Sheraton Hotel

We found ourselves on the Houston Flight to Quito with Field Guides "Jewels of Ecuador" participants Margaret Kelch & Harvey Medland, Toronto; Mike Seamans, Seattle; as well as seatmate 25-year old Emma, from New Brunswick, and her two friends. The three were to meet Emma's boyfriend in Quito and then rent a car to bird Ecuador on their own. We were to meet the rest of our birding group at the Sheraton Hotel in Quito.

Emma sat next to me and had the complete Birds of Ecuador guide (we carried only the bound plates rather than the 2-inch thick book). Emma would look at a page crowded with similar looking parrots, for instance, study it for a few minutes, and then be able to remember the birds' names and point out the differences among them. I wished my memory were again that of a 25-year old!

I enjoyed looking down at the Andes, some with narrow dirt roads tracing their sides and knife edge aretes, seemingly connecting no more than a small farm or two. Little did I know that the majority of our birding would be on this kind of narrow, muddy, cliff-hanging dirt road, one better private one roughly hand-cobbled.

Iris McPherson, my travel companion, and I got to Quito at about 11:45 pm EST, and waited in a great crowd to get through customs. While we were waiting, an Ecuadorian man approached me and pointed to the "Senior Line" which had only about four people in it. I jokingly asked him how he knew I belonged in the senior line, and we all got a good laugh out of it. Truth of the matter, I am tall, fair skinned, and have short grey hair. Ecuadorian women are short, dark complected, and retain their blue-black hair, worn long, even into old age. We were glad that this senior line was pointed out to us, however, because we did get through customs much more quickly than the younger huddled masses.

Internet photo of Quito from the air

Our Sheraton driver was waiting outside customs. He collected Iris and me as well as Harvey, Margaret, and Mike, and then began snagging other Sheraton customers. The four of us were soon joined by Sally Marrone, Brinnon, WA; and Susan Marsden, Richmond, NH. These two were also Field Guides participants who had flown in on a Delta flight. The five of us, plus Steve, a traveler from Australia, piled onto the Sheraton shuttle bus. Australian Steve was dressed in shorts, flip-flops, and had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. He'd just come from Costa Rica and was freezing in the cold air of 9350' Quito. He was on his way to the Galapagos.

My feet and ankles were swollen from the flights and altitude, but our Sheraton room was comfortable and we were in bed by 1:30 am.