Guayaquil-Quito

1037 In reception, they have called a taxi, coming in 5 mins. Bit tired and didn't want to get up, not too bad. Am a bit later than I'd like and cos I gorged on my 'travel peanuts' night before last and supermarket shut yday have no food, might get chance to eat at airport. Bit worried am running bit late but I don't think airport is that far away. Meh.

1044 Just hastily located hotel on OSM while sitting in reception, completely forgot to do it last night or immediately after booking.

1109 At airport (didn't leave hotel til some time after previous entry) in slightly pricey restaurant called Cajun; I expect food and an juice will weigh in about USD10 but that's not too insane. Taxi was 5, not sure I should have tipped but I made it 6. Still landside, but boarding pass says not due to present myself at airport til 12, it is v close to town so here v early, and I didn't want to make assumptions about food availability airside especially here in the domestic (part of the?) terminal.

1134 Bill 8.25, will make it 9 with tip. Food nothing stunning but not too pad and moderately healthy I think.

1145 Airside. Pretty unintrusive security, no need to take laptop or liquids out of bag (I am flying hand luggage only). Way early but better than being rushed. There is a small bar/cafe here but don't think I will indulge.

Guide book not super helpful re arrival in Quito as it predates the opening of the new airport in 2013. I don't remember any specific warnings about taxi scams at the airport so I guess I will just have to take a taxi from the airport rank and hope; it's one of those unavoidable risks. Given both lack of travel guide info and general other security concerns public transport is probably not prudent. I am at least arriving during daylight (deliberate, of course) and it will probably be OK.

Incidentally, the BA hotel emailed me offering an airport pickup for USD29. This seems insane but I need to check what it will cost to get my own. Since I am landing 8pm I am not inclined to faff with the no 8 bus as I have done (and would do again) if I were arriving in the morning. I also need to get to the airport to fly home of course. I suspect - based solely on not flipping out at the price when I flew back after my trip in 2012 - it's not mega expensive to get a cab and the hotel are milking it. On the other hand, since I am (probably) not hailing a cab on the street if the hotel want to do the same milking on the trip to the airport after I check out not much I can do. Definitely need to read up on this; no *immediate* rush but best not to leave it to last minute.

FWIW airport all very slick and modern and not crowded; there were two parallel scanning lines at security and I didn't have to queue at all. Nearly every flight is to Quito, a couple to San Cristobal and Cuenca.

1316 On plane.

I accidentally brought a bottle of water on with me. The horror! No one stopped me. I'm sitting here shaking now in case someone blows the plane up.

1420 Landed. Seems a bit silly to have taken such a short flight. But let's see how I feel when I get to hotel. At risk of jinxing things I am also tempted to say 'wow, that was all so easy'.

1551 At the hotel. That was easy but expensive. Took a while to get off plane. Went to shuttle desk but no shuttle, so I had to get a prepay taxi for USD26. To be fair it is fucking miles (some quite nice views). Taxi driver spoke to me a tiny bit, he said something about a volcano which is erupting two hours from here which you can visit.

On up side this hotel (unlike one in Guayaquil) said if I didn't want a receipt I didn't have to pay the 10% and 12% surcharges on the booking.com price, so I've 'saved' USD40 compared to what I expected to pay.

Woman on desk essentially refused to accept my passport for safe keeping, she said it would be safe in my room. I didn't insist but not super happy.

1558 Yay. Both wifi networks at the hotel show super strong signal and then don't work. It's not the password as I just deliberately got it wrong and it outright fails instead of hanging on getting an IP address. The netbook doesn't work either - at Guayaquil hotel (Re Bed & Breakfast, BTW) the phone was super unreliable but the netbook connected well.

Not very happy. Even if it were medically advisable I can't go out at night much if at all here because of the fucking safety concerns, and it's not going to be much fun staying in without a fucking internet connection. Really sick of cunts lying about this on booking.com property details.

As read on tripadvisor rooms open onto central stairwell and I can hear two Dutch SYTs (they are speaking in English, maybe I am wrong or they are not both Dutch, still, not impossible I guess) chatting on the ground floor. Not an enormous problem and I haven't tried shutting the windows.

The room is fairly nice if slightly dingy, but I can forgive a lot if the wifi works and on the flip side the fact the wifi doesn't work takes a lot of the gloss off. Yes, I can presumably go sit out in the corridor, wow. Great for Skype! It is fairly cheap all the same.