We knew the date but had our days off; we thought we had one more day in Quito. However, when we returned from the Murakami event, the hotel mentioned that our car to the airport was arranged for 7:30 am. Generally this would not be a problem, however, the day before we dropped off most of our clothing at the laundry. The hotel quickly determined which laundry and called minutes before it closed at 9 pm to explain our situation. At 7:14 am the following morning, we still did not have our clothing. Starting to get concerned, we started to problem solve. Just then we saw a woman running down the street with a bag of laundry. We packed, settled the hotel bill and left for the airport.
There was morning traffic and the driver said not to worry—it should not take more than an hour. Then a policeman knocked on the window. Quito has a policy to reduce traffic that restricts cars on the road based on the last digit of the car’s license plates. Our taxi was not allowed on the road and was pulled over. Our driver was horrified, apologetic and said to wait a few minutes. After twenty minutes and multiple conversations, the police said we needed a new taxi and stopped a cabby on the highway. We quickly grabbed our luggage and crossed several lanes to get into our new taxi. We arrived a few minutes late but with just enough time to spare.
The rest of the day was uneventful (luckily). We flew to Baltra via Guayaquil but did not have to change planes. The photo of the flowers was inside the Quito airport.
We arrived in the Galapagos, went through immigration, waited for our bags, met the other passengers and arrived to our ship, the Petrel.
