Day 1: Intro and Travel Day
Remember when air travel used to be fun? Flying during winter months has always presented challenges, however, a seemingly endless array of non-weather flight delays, missing luggage, and a barrage of inconsistent airport security procedures are now the norm. While these setbacks are not enough to thwart our desire to travel, they certainly have altered how we prepare.
One tactic we now employ: create a time buffer by arriving at our destination one full day (or more) before the start of a tour. Most tours are very tightly scheduled and missing the first day can cause considerable angst! We scheduled to arrive in Quito a day early and encouraged everyone in our group to do likewise. At Richard’s suggestion, we planned an optional day trip to help acquaint us with the Quito area and acclimate to higher elevation birding, and, give us an added day of birding getting to an area we would have otherwise missed!
While we (and by “we” I mean mainly Carol) rallied the troops stateside, planning our trip itinerary and ground accommodations in Ecuador fell to the very capable hands of our good friend Richard Garrigues (Gone Birding Tours, Costa Rica). He has organized our past Costa Rica birding trips. We would be hard pressed to find a more professional, thorough, patient, and knowledgeable guide than Richard. It doesn’t hurt that he is the author of the now critically acclaimed “The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide”.
While Richard has birded Ecuador before, he felt our tour would be enhanced by contracting with Tropical Birding, a well-established birding guide company based in Ecuador. José Illanes, a native Ecuadorian and one of Tropical Birding’s highly regarded staff would serve as our principle guide. Not a bad ratio: two guides for ten birders! At times this ratio was increased when a lodge provided a local guide.
Besides us, our group consisted of Melissa Bruder, Joan Campbell, Mike Farrell, Marge Hill, Rita and Steve Reischel, Claire Romanak, and Janet Schumacher. Janet, a native of Wisconsin, currently resides in New York. Everyone else lives in Wisconsin.
Departing Chicago O’Hare early Monday morning on January 21, our 3½-hour American Airlines flight arrived in Miami without incident. Our expected 2-hour layover experienced an added gate departure delay of an extra hour. This put us on the ground in Quito well after dark following our 4-hour flight from Miami. Clearing immigration and customs and with all our checked baggage in hand (thank goodness!) we were greeted by José from Tropical Birding at the Quito airport. We boarded a large comfortable bus for a 20-minute ride to the Hotel Quito. Janet, who had flown in two days earlier from New York, and Richard, who had arrived earlier that day from Costa Rica, met us in the hotel lobby. Once we settled into our rooms we met in the hotel bar for drinks, which afforded us an opportunity to unwind and to get to know one another. Faced with an early morning start to our optional birding field trip, and having had a long travel day, we made it an early night. After more than a year’s worth of planning and anticipation, we were finally in Ecuador!
