Thursday, November 17, 2011

Amsterdam to Quito

Tulips from Amsterdam
16 November 2011

Following a good nights sleep, we repacked our hand baggage and headed back to the Dutch Kiktchen for breakfast.  Freshly cooked eggs, bacon and coffee were reasonably priced, for an airport!  The airport was heaving and we were amused by the almost nonstop announcements about final calls for specific passengers telling them they were holding up the flight and that their baggage was about to be off-loaded.

Our flight on a KLM 777-300 was due to leave around 1000, so we headed for the gate. For some reason, everyone was put through full security (no liquids etc) at the gate despite the fact we were already airside and everyone had been through arrival security at the airport.  They must have thought we were a 'dodgy' lot.

We encountered an interesting method of boarding the aircraft with one of the 'ramps' going up and over the wing to allow passengers at the rear of the aircraft easy access.  A good idea which permitted quick boarding.

Tucked into our row of two seats, window and aisle, almost at the back of the aircraft, we were impressed by the legroom we had.  This was as well, as we were about to spend about 12 hours in those seats!  The departure was slightly delayed by the late arrival of some connecting flight.

Once airborne, we headed back over the North Sea and England!  The route took us back over London and across the middle of England and Wales before crossing the coast in mid-Wales.  The next land we would spot would be the Dutch Antilles, Bonaire, Curacao and Aruba.

Food and service on the flight was very good and KLM crew very friendly and helpful, Once we had got used to all announcements first in Dutch, followed by English and then Spanish.  Dutch to me still sounds like a throat clearing exercise.

The view from the window was predictably boring for most of the flight, unless you were a cloud-spotter!  However, once we crossed the coast of Venezuela, the scenery became spectacular.  Our route took us across the mountainous interior of Venezuela into Columbia passing between Bogata and Medelin and further into the Andes to Ecuador and Quito.

The airport approach at Quito is quite remeniscient of the approach into the old airport in Hong Kong at Kai Tak, weaving between hills and buildings.  The current airport is showing its age and a new one is being constructed to the north of the city.

Arrivals at Quito was fairly chaotic and we queued for over an hour to get through immigration.  Once through this, we found our checked-in luggage (all there, but one bag damaged) and we then had to queue again to get through customs, where all bags were again subjected to x-ray examination.  Although we had been sitting for a long time on the flight, we certainly did not enjoy the long queues here.

Once out of the airport we quickly found our travel rep and waited by the curbside for our transport.  The traffic here was entirely anarchic and the airport police appeared somewhat overwhelmed by the traffic scrummage despite much whistle-blowing and arm-waving.

After a wait of about 20 minutes, our van-driver managed to make it to the curb and we quickly loaded the luggage and jumped in.  In fairness, it was rush hour in Quito, but the traffic was pretty mad and reminded me of traffic in Naples.

We got to our hotel, the Dann Carlton, in the business district and joined yet another queue to check-in.  The lobby was full of a party of very loud Americans seemingly organising their dining arrangements, as everyone got to hear!

I'm not sure at the moment if we got a last-minute upgrade at the hotel but our accommodation is a suite with a huge lounge, enormous bedroom, large dressing room and a bathroom.  Doubtless we will find out if this is normal when we check back in here later in the week.  We have two nights here before flying to Coca and onward to a lodge somewhere in the Amazon basin.

Although we are in Ecuador we ate Japanese food at a cafe a few doors down from hotel, a bowl of terayaki seemed preferable to large meal after all the food we had consumed on the flight earlier.

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