| Bye San Francisco! | Hola Ecuador! |
Today is a long traveling day. After waking up very early in the morning, Louis (thanks!) took me to the airport for my 6am flight to Quito via Miami. There was a bit of excitement on board when a passenger had an epileptic attack and the flight attendants were calling for a medical doctor (there were two on board). The person was fine after the attack ended, but in Quito, paramedics boarded the plane and escorted the passenger to an ambulance. All passengers also met with medical personnel. Ecuador is taking steps against the swine flu and every single passenger from the US and Mexico is screened individually for fever (using a thermal scanner).
Getting from the airport to the hotel was easy. Just outside customs there are desks that help you book a taxi. In this booth, they figure out the address of the hotel and write it down for the driver. You then get a voucher that you give to any yellow taxi outside. The 20-minute ride from the airport to my hotel (it was rush hour) was $6. An interesting fact is that Ecuador uses the US Dollars as their official currency. It's very convenient that you don't need to exchange money (except that they use their own coins, with values from 1 cent to 1 dollar including a very common 50 cent one).
It was a long day, so I went to bed early after checking my emails and doing some calls. Tomorrow, a day tour of Quito.
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