This year our son Bill came down with us. I went down to Canmore a couple of days early to mostly chill but also to nag him about packing, making sure he had found his passport etc. We left Canmore about 1700 on Wednesday to go to the Delta Airpot hotel. Our plane was to leave at 0640 the next morning and quite frankly being able to just walk across to the airport is priceless. We of course had the ubiquitous mission hockey bags 4 in total plus our own stuff. In Calgary I was able to find long term parking quite close to the terminal. There didn't seem to be a shuttle but there were luggage carts so we wheeled our bags about a km to our hotel. Mary was coming down by Red Arrow and arrived just after 7. We had an expensive meal in the hotel restaurant after which we tried to sleep. We all awoke shortly after 3 am, got dressed, drank some coffee and then checked out picking up our bags and rolled across the street to the departures.
Even just after 4 am there was a huge line to check. Fortunately I had managed to get Prestige status which meant we all got to go the head of the line. This didn't help much as it was a long slog through customs and security. One wonders how much productivity is lost through the long process of crossing borders, especially having travelled in Europe. The US departures area in Calgary is much inferior to that in Edmonton in terms of places to eat. We had pastries of indeterminate age from Starbucks and sat down to wait for our flight. Gradually other mission members trickled in including my work colleague John Soong from Edmonton, the Pediatric team from Calgary and a few members of our adult team who were flying through Calgary.
After finally boarding, it was a 3.5 hour flight to Houston which I spent trying to sleep or read. In Houston we went to our usual go to place, Pappadeux for a feed of fish and of course a beer. We had a 5 hour stopover in Houston so this only killed about an hour, the rest of the time we spend wandering around, reading etc. It was a 5 hour flight to Quito which was long if uneventful. We cleared customs in Quito in an acceptable time, picked up our bags without event and were outside. We had to wait a bit for the bus to our hotel and also for the bus which would take our bags to Cuenca (they are too heavy for the plane to take off). We stayed at beautiful and comfortable Hacienda style hotel about 20 minutes from the airport and were in bed by shortly after 2 am.
We got to "sleep in" as our flight wasn't until 1230 which meant leaving the hotel around 1030 so we awoke around 8 am got dressed, had a nice buffet breakfast before loading ourselves back on the bus to go back to the airport. Our flight to Cuenca was a short hour flight. Unfortunately it was cloudy and we couldn't see much until we approached Cuenca. We landed, got our bags and were greeted by the Rotarians who help us out every year. We went in two buses through the crowded streets of Cuenca to our hotel the Inca Real. It sounds hackneyed but after 9 years I find Cuenca and the Inca Real to be a second home.
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