Home to Nova Scotia

>On April 4th, our first three months in Ecuador came to an end on the last day of the visit of the C.O. to our English group. This served to boost our determination to try and get back to Ecuador as quickly as possible as he really emphasized the need in English, not only in the area we were in, but in all of Ecuador! It was a nice place to leave it.
So, we got a ride to Quito with Brian and spent the night in our favourite B&B (Jumbo Lodging in the ‘Centro Historico’ district of Quito). We arrived at the airport the next morning bright and early as our flight was leaving at 6:15AM. All was going well until we hit the customs booth. The lady checked our passports and said we couldn’t leave Ecuador without a ‘censo card’! What?!! We were thinking there had to be some mistake. We were familiar with brothers and sisters having to get censo cards, but were sure it didn’t apply to us because we were there on a six month tourist visa! We had followed all the directions we were told by the Ecuadorian embassy when we received our visas which included making sure we registered our visas within the required 30 days of arriving in Ecuador! It was difficult trying to reason with the person behind the window since they spoke absolutely no English. She finally called the American Airlines desk who sent a representative down to help us out. Speaking in Spanish to the customs officer it seemed she was attempting to defend our point that a censo card was not required with tourist visas, but she was not winning the argument. So, she led us to the American Airlines desk and tried to explain to us in her scanty English that we could not take our flight back to Canada until we had a censo card…(which brought about a flood of tears) and tried to show us what we needed to do to get it.  This involved taking a taxi back into downtown Quito to the Immigration office, which did not open until 8AM (our flight was leaving at 6:30AM).She reassured us that she would re-book our entire flight itinerary and that there was another flight to Miami leaving at 9:30AM. She did everything she could to make it easier for us… taking us up to the customs office at the airport and explaining to them our plight. The man there explained what documents we were going to need and what we should do to expedite the process…even making photocopies of our passports for us which we were going to need and writing down the address of the Immigration office to show the taxi driver. He also said we would need brown manila envelopes to put the documents in which were sold in a store beside the Immigration office. They warned us, though, that we would have to get back to the American Airlines desk no later than 8:45 in order to board the 9:30 flight!!
So, off we went…we took note of how long the taxi ride took so we’d know how long it would take to get back to the airport after getting our censo cards. When we arrived at the office, there was already a lineup outside. We dashed into the little store to buy the envelopes. The lady there was very helpful, even explaining to us that we would also need an electric bill or something that showed an address in Ecuador. When we said we didn’t have such a thing on us, she said she would give us one of hers to use! Then rushed us to the lineup, marched up to the locked door and knocked on it until someone came. There was an interchange of urgent-sounding words between them which we deduced were attempts to get us in sooner because of our imminent flight, without success. So, she stood in the line for us while her daughter in the store took care of our document needs. Unbelievable! Richie naturally gave her a generous tip!
We finally got in and out of that office after an agonizing wait, checking my watch every few minutes! Hailed a cab, checked the watch again… yikes! only a few minutes left to get back to the airport! We ran when we got out of the cab… through the airport to the desk… the clock there said 8:50!! Oh no! The kind lady spotted us, beckoned us to the desk, rushed through some necessary paperwork and ran with us to the boarding gate… just in time to get on! Whew!
So, that was stressful enough, but… by the time we got to New York JFK airport, the flight from there to Halifax we were booked on had been cancelled due to bad weather in Halifax, so American Airlines re-booked us on a Delta Airlines flight that same day which they said was still going to Halifax, so we hauled everything over to the Delta wing of  JFK and went to check in at the desk, but when we arrived there, the book we’d just been re-scheduled on was cancelled also. So, they booked us on a flight for the next morning… but they only had ‘stand-by’ available. We took it, but we had to spend the night in JFK… horrible night… between the loud music ALL night and being really nervous I didn’t sleep a wink! Delta had given us food vouchers for dinner and breakfast the next morning, which was big of them, but it would have been nice if they had also provided lodging vouchers. Anyway, after breakfast the next morning we checked in again at the Delta desk and waited to see if we were going to get on… stand-by is only good if someone cancels or doesn’t show up by boarding time… suddenly they said over the speaker that … guess what… they were having to reduce the number of passengers on the flight because of an overweight problem!! Arghhh… they were asking for six people who had tickets for the flight to volunteer to go the next day… so, it was obvious we weren’t getting on THAT flight!! Which meant… yep,  another sleepless night in JFK… NOT!! There was no way I was doing that again… I went to the counter and asked (read begged) that we be given a lodging voucher because this wasn’t our fault! No way, they said because the original problem was ‘weather related’ we didn’t qualify for lodging vouchers. Well, I would have paid $500 at that point to sleep in a hotel, but when we actually found a shuttle to take us to the nearest hotel, which was a Howard Johnson, it ended up only costing $100! Amazing for New York City I thought. That was way less than we paid at the Holiday Express at Halifax airport!! It was weird, though, being in New York City, looking out the hotel window and seeing…. no, not the statue of liberty, but what looked like the back parking lot of Walmart back in Antigonish… sigh. Kind of disappointing, but, a hot shower and a refreshing night’s sleep were soooo welcome! Next morning we were finally on our way home!
We took a bus from Halifax airport to Antigonish, and the thing that struck me the most along the way was CLEAN… everything looked sooooo clean!