Monday April 9, 2012 - Departure We woke up at 3 a.m. It was still raining. We got ready and headed over to the house at 3:45 a.m. for coffee, which Rosa had generously offered to make for us despite the early hour. The whole family would be accompanying us on the ride to the airport. We drank our coffee and Yupanqui had a bite of cake and ended up with frosting on his mouth. Sisa was all in green and wearing a backpack. I said she looked like a tortuga (turtle) and she loved that. I snapped a picture. Chipi the kitten had been largely absent yesterday but she showed up this morning to say goodbye. The car arrived at 4:15 a.m., 15 minutes early, no doubt because of the weather. We left the house at 4:20. The women and Sisa were quick to try to lay back and sleep but Yupanqui, chocolate in hand, was now awake. "Hola Hola Hola!" The road to Quiroga was really bad. I made the mistake of saying these kids don't seem to get carsick. From a deep sleep, Sisa projectile vomited. They cleaned up as best they could. We stopped briefly at the driver's house in Quiroga and then at a gas station and then a rest room. It was better not to look at the mountainous roads where buses were passing us on blind corners in the dark. By the time we got to Quito, the traffic was almost a relief. Sure you could get into a fender bender in the Monday rush hour traffic of the city, but you more than likely wouldn't be killed. We arrived at the airport at 7:10 a.m. The family walked inside with us and we gave hugs and kisses and said our goodbyes. We checked in at a kiosk. At immigration, they wanted our entry card. I started to panic, as we had not received one upon arrival in Quito. We were afraid what this might mean, but it just meant I filled out a new one on the spot. We went through security and were some of the first ones at the gate. There were a bunch of high schoolers from California and their chaperones. Some kids had 4 carry-ons plus a full-sized pillow. And the security woman was inconsistent by letting some of them through with sodas and 12 tubs of Lava dish soap despite the ban on liquids and gels. Somehow we knew that if we had tried to take home a jar of honey as we had wanted to, it would have been confiscated. That's how things go for us. The flight was at 9:45. I wound up sitting next to one of the high school girls but then she traded seats with a chaperone. The flight was uneventful. We had an awesome ham and cheese sandwich to eat. I typed in some of my notes. We landed in Miami and hurried to immigration. There was one line which split into two. Of course some poeple at the end of the line decided to go up to the beginning and form their own line. And we ended up in the very back. They went to open a third line and I hurried over. The immigration guy was a bit sharp with me telling me "Stand here!" When we went through he said we seemed agitated... Great, that will probably be on my permanent TSA record now. We then went through customs (the agent asked us where we stayed in Ecuador as we walked through). Then we got to the long security line. It said "from here 15 minutes" but it ended up being thirty. It was so hot in there. They were profiling kids who looked like burnouts and swabbing their hands. We checked the board again and our gate had changed. At least this time we knew before we hoofed it to the other end of the airport. We found our gate and tried to use a power outlet. The ones on poles were off but we found one on the wall we could use and plugged in the netbook. I went to Nathan's Hot Dogs and got us chicken tenders with hot honey mustard and fries and Gatorades. The flight took off around 5:30. We got to Boston at 8:40 p.m., paid $270 to park (!) and came home. We'd have to find an alternative to parking at Logan Airport in the future.

Sisa is ready to go to the airport Saying goodbye at the airport See all photos from this day