Quito Ecuador

Sunday
January 25, 2015 Quito
We're a little behind on our blog so we'll catch up the last few days.

Tuesday, January 20th, 2015
Having already packed and re-packed many times, we were ready to leave for Ottawa by about 10am. Thankfully, the weather was clear and the roads were good.
No trip to Ottawa is complete without lunch (V13 on the menu) at the Oxhead Vietnamese restaurant in Kanata. It's not fantastic but we like it. From there it was a short jaunt to the Days Inn on Hunt Club near the airport, where we stayed overnight. We just ate snacks in our room and watched a movie on DVD. "The Hunger Games" was better than we thought it would be although it still seems to be made mostly for teenage girls.
Wednesday, January 21st, 2015
Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 11 so we were able to have breakfast at the hotel and still get the 8 am shuttle. As we checked in, we arranged to be on standby for the 10 am flight to Toronto and were able to get on that plane.
It worked out well because we had to clear US customs in Toronto and that took awhile. It wasn't busy at all but for some reason they thought we had checked 3 bags not 2 so we had to sort that out. After clearing customs and security we tried to use the complimentary Maple Leaf Lounge pass that we had gotten due to our Aeroplan status. They wouldn't let us in because we were travelling to Houston on United Airlines not Air Canada even though we had booked our travel on Aeroplan Rewards and took the flights they gave us. We went to Air Canada customer service to complain but got nowhere. They'll be getting a nasty letter from me again.
Although the UA plane to Houston seemed new, it had no entertainment service at all so we read and relaxed. In Houston we had to switch terminals to catch our flight to Quito an hour later. It's a fairly big airport but there's an efficient monorail between terminals so we got to our gate in plenty of time. Then our plane was delayed about an hour so we even had time to grab a sandwich for supper. Finally we took off but at least we had a 3 seat row to ourselves for the 5 1/2 hour flight to Quito. This time there was seatback screens but there was a $4 charge for their use. There aren't many free perks left in air travel, especially with United. At least we avoided changing planes in Newark, the black hole of North American flying.
We arrived in Quito about 12:30 am, cleared customs and got our packs with no problem, and then found the taxi desk. For $25 a nice lady with a long braid and shawl drove us right to our hotel, the Cayman in the Mariscal district. Quito is a big city that stretches north/south between the surrounding mountains.
We checked in and got to sleep shortly after 2 am, which is not bad. There is a lot of street noise through the night in the Mariscal but we slept pretty well.
Thursday January 22nd, 2015
We actually felt better than we anticipated after our long travel day so after breakfast and a shower, we took a cab down to the old town. We saw the National Basilica and then walked down to the Plaza Grande.