Day 1: The 90 Degree Adventure!

Welcome to our blog of our trip to Ecuador!


We are calling this trip the “90 degrees from Phoenix” because we went straight from Phoenix to Miami and then Quito is a direct line south of Miami on the map! Our plane had a cool little graphic that was kind of fun to watch as we flew!



Jenny and I started our adventure last night with a fun pre-trip dinner at Macayos. I then had the great pleasure of staying at Motel de Merritt, which Jenny had made so cute for me with the futon all pulled out…the TV remote ready to go…and a late night “acrobatics show” put on by her cats which was AWESOME!

Per Jennifer’s suggestion, we made copies of our passports and left one copy with Rico, Jenn’s husband and then when I asked Jenny where we should put the other one- she said, “How about our purses?” Ummm, that’s where our passports are so that kind of defeats the purpose…I will be teasing her about this for the rest of the trip.

We had a very sweet early morning chauffeur to the airport…her brother Jimmy woke up at 6:00 am to take us! Thanks Jimmy! What a good brother!

Our first hurdle was that I had made the suggestion to Jenny that we try to take all of our stuff in carry on bags…so we both stuffed our bags so full that when we got to the check in- they said they were too wide to fit in the overhead bin. Despite our military packing skills, we had to check them anyway. Note to Jenny: First rule of traveling with Kristin….don’t take any of her crazy suggestions.

Our first flight was about 4 hours and was to Miami. There was hardly anyone on the plane. Jenny took a nap and I listened to music because I could not settle down because I was too excited! Once in Miami, we had to go to a different concourse which felt like it was a million miles away and we were very happy we didn’t have our bags to drag along. We had a very strange tasting cheeseburger in an airport restaurant, but we were both so hungry we didn’t care. We boarded flight 2 which involved taking an escalator down which was very interesting.

Miami to Quito flight was about 3:45 minutes. This flight went a little faster because the in flight movie was FAME! which Jenny and I had both been wanting to see. We had a nice dinner on the plane, I was actually really surprised that it was so good.

We arrived in Quito, had to take stairs down off the plane, then take a bus shuttle to the terminal, then wait to have our passports stamped. We found our bags (yay! they made it safely) and then went to where Pat Parks, Madre Miguel, BVM, Father John Halligan, SJ , and Sister Cindy Sullivan, BVM greeted us at the airport with a Working Boys Center Spiritual Journey sign. Ironically, the gentleman who had been on the plane right next to me ended up being Bernie, from Milwaukee, WI who is also on the Spiritual Journey.



Father John and Madre Miguel drove us to our hotel which is called the Mercure. Madre Miguel is very cute and was telling us that she and her sister Pat Parks and Sister Joan all grew up together in Boone, Iowa. We are hopeful to hear some fun stories about their adventures as young girls. Madre Miguel and Father John have both been in Quito for over 40 years…when Madre started to give Father John a hard time he gave her some sass right back which was very cute! I’d say after 40 years of working together you would be like brother and sister! Madre was telling us that it hasn’t rained here in a very long time and the city is hydropowered so last week they didn’t have lights or power because there wasn’t enough water.

Our hotel is very pretty and has a fun little night club and a casino. I think Madre Miguel could see that Jenny and I were excited about that especially because it was playing some very fun music (that sounded very Ecuadorian) She winked and smiled and reminded us to get some sleep because we are at over 9000 feet in elevation. We ordered some aspirin to take because that will help prevent altitude sickness. We also decided that icecream would probably help prevent it too! We have pictures of that too, but will have to add those when we get back because Jenny's card doesn't fit my adapter.

So now it’s almost midnight here and we are just relaxing in our room and watching TV with Spanish subtitles. Tomorrow there is complimentary breakfast downstairs in the hotel and then they are coming to get us in the Working Boys Center Bus at 9:30 am.

I have already told Jenny about 50 times that I really hope we get to play recess with the kids in the school because “playing is the international language and I am fluent in the language of charades!” This was before we even got off the plane to which she commented, “Put on the brakes Kristin!” Do I even have brakes???

So it’s off to bed and our morning routine is probably going to involve in some way the use of the BOOM BOX in our hotel room. Hahaha Poor Jenny….

We are already having so much fun! And I think it is going to be an amazing time. I haven’t started to take any video yet because I was too scared to be video taping in the airport etc. But tomorrow…..let the Ecuador documentary begin!


Much love to all and we wish you were here!

Love- Kristin and Jenny