I took the bus at night from Toronto to go to New York because I had a flight from JFK airport. It was cold around -15 degrees and was expected to snow about 10 centimeters. By the time we crossed the borders there was 10 centimeters of snow, I was very lucky that I left at this time because I heard there was a lot of snow and for the most part of the time I was back in Canada it was cold but no major snow storm.
I got to New York City, had a quick lunch and head to the airport to catch the flight. The flight had a 2 stops, the first was in Mexico City and we got there around 10PM, it was nice and warm almost 15 degrees Celsius, a big difference from where I left. The final destination was Guayaquil in Ecuador with a stop in Quito, Ecuador. When we approached Quito, which is the capital of Ecuador and considered as the highest capital in the world. When the airplane started the final descent in Quito, I could see a lot of clouds but usually this is something normal, where I’ve seen it in many other places I traveled to. As the airplane started to descend further all of sudden we could feel the captain increasing the speed and taking the nose of the airplane up, it was like the movies where you see them saying “abort” and then change the original plan. It wasn’t scary and was no reaction on any of the passengers but it was clear that the captain could not land the airplane. So we made a U-turn and I thought they were trying to see if it possible to approach the airport from the other direction, then the captain announced that due to bad weather we won’t be able to land in Quito and we will be heading to Guayaquil. I thought that’s great I don’t have to take a flight to Guayaquil. We landed in Guayaquil and the captain announced we will remain in the airplane until further notice. I asked the flight attendant if I could get off the airplane in Guayaquil and they said no, I was thinking it’s like a bus, I can get off where I want as long as it’s a terminal or a bus stop. But of course it’s not the same, there are more rules and regulations. Anyhow, after almost an hour the captain made another announcement saying we will be going back to Quito as he was told the weather has improved. I was really impressed with the captain, she really didn’t take a chance over the safety of the passengers. I was also very impressed with the passengers, none of them complain or shouted as I’ve seen in many flights in the US when people seemed to be a little edgy when there were similar flight delays.
We went back to Quito and landed as normal. When we landed I found out that the flight I was scheduled to take to Guayaquil has left. As I was heading to get some information on that to do next, I met 2 other passengers who had the same issue, after waiting almost about 3 hours we were allowed to take a flight to Guayaquil. Finally, I arrived in Guayaquil at 5PM, way behind the original flight which was supposed to arrive at 10AM in the morning. I was a little tired I’ve been traveling for 2 days and been sleeping on the airplanes or on the bus. But with all of that I was very happy when I was leaving the airport with my backpack with a temperature that was almost 25 degrees. It made me forget all the fatigue and discomfort that I had experienced.
25 degrees, lucky you. Enjoy it!!