Our itinerary for today was supposed to take us from Chicago to Miami, then Miami to Quito. We had a 1.5 hour layover, which is of course just long enough to find our gate at a leisurely pace and perhaps grab some lunch before getting on the plane. Right? Wrong.
We boarded our plane in Chicago on time, and for some reason it was taking longer than usual to leave the gate. The pilot came on the intercom and said something about needing to move a whole bunch of fuel from one side of the plane to the other for some reason. Okay. I didn't really pay attention, because I assumed they'd take care of this and we'd be on our way. I only had about three hours of sleep the previous night, if that, so I really did not care.
Finally the pilot said we were good to go and we began taxiing to the runway. Before we get there, though, the pilot comes back on the intercom to say a warning light was on and needed to be checked out. Which meant we had to return to the gate so that the mechanics could look at it. Minutes go by, and we don't hear a word. The seat belt sign is turned off, people are getting restless, and some are even starting to leave the plane for fear of missing connecting flights. An hour and a half after we were supposed to take off, we see that they're unloading our baggage and we're told that the plane is now out of service.
Thus began our day of waiting in lines. We had to wait to talk to an agent about how to still get to Quito that day, as we had missed our connecting flight by then. She got us seats on the last flight to Ecuador for the day, but warned us that it wasn't looking good.
Much later, we finally boarded a plane to Miami, where indeed we did miss the last flight to Quito--bringing our tally of missed flights today to two. Which meant waiting in another line for over an hour to get a hotel voucher to stay the night in this lovely city. So, long story short, we are in a hotel in Miami, minus all of our luggage, waiting for the next flight to Quito (which is at 4:00pm Miami time). It's so funny how we keep seeing other people from our doomed Miami flight--in lines, in the hotel, on the shuttle. I love how strangers bond so fast over being stranded in an airport together. So much for wanting to get there early! It has been one crazy day, but I'm so glad that us four trolls are together for all of the craziness. It's also kind of nice being able to text AJ for another day. I guess I have my own personal airplane horror story to tell now! So, hopefully next time you hear from me I'll be in South America for real!
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