It was an early start into the day – and certainly the wine we took in Frankfurt last night was not making the get up easier. As there was no train connection to Frankfurt the same morning, to at least not early enough, I t ooh the rail and fly the day earlier and tripped to the airport starting at 5 in the morning. The Iberia counter was queued already and things were really moving slow, so better you are there early. Luckily it was possible to check the luggage through to Quito, which should ease my plans to see Madrid because we had a 5,5 hours stopover before moving on. Luckily I was still quite out of order so I could not too actively witness the “comfort” (no drinks, smallest seats I had ever seen) of the Iberia express flight to Madrid.

Being equipped with a short tour of the main things to see combined with the daily good and stable metro connections it was certainly recommendable to see the city. Not only because I had never been before, but specifically because Madrid is a beautiful city. I had lunch there testing some really exclusive tapas, something you don’t get in good old Germany.

At the airport I met parts of the group – the other half must have been leaving already. For some strange reasons our group of 9 was not booked directly to Quito but with the stopover to Guayaquil. As we had some unplanned authority check before lift off we started with an hour delay, so as I am writing this on the flight there is still some ounce frailty if we will make it to Quito tonight. The LAN flight is pretty comfortable though, as I just had a nice dinner with good red wine and whiskey and because the plane is not at all fully booked will stretch out across three seats now taking a good sleep making the 12 hours flights me more stand-able.

When arriving Guayaquil we were a little delayed and actually miss the onward flight, but there seems to be sort of a final fallback plane not leaving before all international flights have arrived, so in the end with only little waiting time we flew to Quito (the new airport outside of town) where we finally arrived at 2:30, after another 50 minute bus drive to the city. We were almost complete, and also all but one piece of luggage had made it.

At the arrivals we also met our friendly and relaxed guide, who briefed us about the weather (at night 7 deg. Cel. / daytime easily 25,yet frequent chance of showers) trip of the next day in perfect English.

Good nite!

Day 1: Traveling or “Frankfurt – Madrid – Guayaquil – Quito”