Galivanting thru the Galapagos & the Amazon

Mesa, AZ - Dec 2021 - Getting ready for vacation - Holiday Dance at Greenfield & again at Monte Vista! We're ready to go!!!!

We finally got to have a dance season in Mesa again! We have maintained our historical schedule with 2 evening dances per week & 5 day time classes. It's been AWESOME! We finished up the fall Season with 2 Holiday dances. On Thursday, Dec 9th, we had our regular Holiday dance at Greenfield Village & even finished up the evening with a social visit. Felt great to be back to some semblance of normalcy!

Since we weren't leaving on vacation until Monday morning, 13 December, we decided to enjoy a second Holiday dance at Monte Vista on Sunday, 12 December. Had a great time & can't wait to start dancing again in January! It's been so so so good to see everyone on the dance floor again!

Monday morning we got up bright & early & headed off to the airport about 8am with Lyft. Felt fabulous to be heading off on vacation again after our 2 year time without travel due to Covid!

The Phoenix Sky Harbor airport was all decorated for Christmas & the travelers seemed to all be in great spirits. After all the negative hype about traveling in the news, we were rather dreading it, but we didn't see anything bad at all. Folks were considerate & happy. It was easy peasy getting checked in & on board!

The first leg of our flight was to the George Bush International Airport in Houston & it was well with us landing a few minutes early. We'd paid extra for Economy Plus seats & Priority boarding so all went well. We used our Priority Pass cards for a free meal at the Landry Seafood Restaurant in our Terminal. We're really loving it! Feels awesome to be back traveling again!!! We landed about midnight in Quito & that was rather a chore - had a long line to have security verify our Covid vaccines & the proof of our negative test - then another long line to go through passport control. And another long line to scan our baggage & check the passports one more time. It was 1:30am when we found our OAT representative & then realized we were the first of the 5 folks on this flight on our tour. By the time we arrived at our hotel at 2:30am, we were exhausted. But we're HERE! In Quito. With a lovely suite on the 8th floor.