Journey to Ecuador part 2

(There are a lot of parts after 2)

On the night of the 2nd we left Montana on the overnight train.  I would like to tell you how awesome and comfortable it was, but that would be lying.  On the plus side our kids slept most of the night, and although the train was late leaving and stopped at one million places in the middle of nowhere for long periods of time, we finally made it.  The kids were perfectly well behaved an for how little I slept I like to think I was moderately well behaved.  Of course there was that part when we first got on the train where the conductor tells you where to go sit, and when we get there he has only given us three seats, and I start talking loudly about how some people are going to have to move because we paid for four seats and everyone that was currently occupying two had only paid for one and a nice (scared) lady quickly moved to sit by her traveling companion instead.  Yep, I was that lady.

Arriving back to my dad’s where I was staying at almost noon, we spent the day sleeping, re-packing to make everything fit, and getting our last moments in with family.  We tried to get to be early, as we were waking up at 3am the next morning for our 6am flight.  We didn’t make it to bed real early, but early enough to sleep for a few hours…

The airport was as expected.  We waited in line with our massive amounts of luggage, only to be told Ecuador has a non-box policy (two of our suitcases were boxes) and that our only option was to buy big canvas bags from the airlines at $35/piece.  I think this is probably hogwash, as I read online before that Brazil has this policy, but it said nothing about Ecaudor….  This took most of the time before our flight, that combined with a super long and slow slow slow security line made us almost miss our flight.  We were the last ones on but managed to make it.  Our first stop was Dallas, to which we arrived right on time, but taxied so long our 45min layover became 30 min, and since we were at the back of the airplane we were stressed beyond belief.  We had a lot of (heavy) carry-on luggage, and tried in vain to buy a cart from the machine which was turned off.  Some super super kind stranger saw our peril and gave us his cart and we ran full speed.  After riding the train around to the right terminal, we were again the last ones on the plane.  This time they told us our carry-on luggage wouldn’t fit because everyone else already had too much and they wanted to check two of our items all the way to Ecuador.  No problem because it’s not like we wanted to keep control of our things like computers, electronics, etc.  We said goodbye to our things hoping we would see them again, and gate checked our stroller.

Arriving in Miami with a 3 hour layover we were feeling pretty good.  The kids had been behaving exceptionally well, and as we got off the plane (very last) we expected to find our stroller at the gate.  No such luck.  After a lot of discussing (and fuming) it was determined that it was either checked all the way to Quito or was going to be found circling the carousel at baggage claim.  It was determined that I would go out and look for it.  The stroller managed to find it’s way out while I was searching the area (and making sure our checked  carry-ons weren’t there) to my surprise/happiness/anger.  I took my umbrella stroller, passport, phone, and ticket to the security line, where I was told I could not go through because I didn’t have a baby with me.  When I calmly explained how the airlines had messed up and my baby was inside, the pre-security check American Airlines person said the policy was that no-baby no-stroller.  I of course was on fire and tried the other security gate where I was told the same thing.  This of course made me fly into an all out shouting rage while the lady just rolled her eyes.  I asked her what I was supposed to do and she told me to go talk to the agent at the counter.  If I would have done this I would have missed the flight based on the length of the line.  I managed to catch a different kind employee and calmly explain my situation and she helpfully pointed me to the manager who took me to the lady who had told me no and told her to let me in.  I will end this story by saying that it is good that I went through and not Aaron, because he says he would have actually hurt someone and would have ended up in jail.

The story continues later…