June 6, 2004 - Houston & Travel Chaos

The Houston airport is a piece of work. James dropped me off (through horrible traffic due to construction) at Terminal D, the international terminal (for my international flight), with my three 55-pound bags and roughly 30 pounds of carry-on gear. But apparently, the check-in terminal for international Continental Airlines flights is Terminal C. I stood around with my gimpy cart (which I managed to load all my gear on, but which unfortunately refused to go in a straight line) and finally figured out that there was a train I had to take to get to Terminal D from Terminal C. After much wrestling with gear, I ended up on the train (two levels down), which had sort of a "70s hitech" aesthetic to it, but when I emerged at Terminal C, there were no carts to be found. At this point, I stood around helplessly for a bit longer before I figured out that I could slowly drag my huge dive bag and Storm case with one hand, while dragging the other Storm case with the other (with my camera bag on top of it). I was of course sweating like a pig by this point, and it had taken me about 45 minutes to wade through misinformation and finally arrive at Terminal C. Luckily, I was flying first class, and there was no line. I wasn't charged excess baggage fees, and there was even a dedicated security line! I *never* get to fly first class, and I actually don't even like to think about it as an option, but I booked this ticket using miles, and there were simply no economy seats left. The first class thing would turn out to be more valuable than I could have imagined.

So after one checks in to an international flight in Terminal C, one has to walk back to Terminal D to actually board the flight. And my departure gate was of course near the opposite end of Terminal D, so I finally arrived -- ready to board the plane -- more than an hour after I arrived at the airport. It wasn't such a big deal, but I was pretty annoyed because I had spent most of the hour struggling with luggage. John Boll greeted me there at the gate, and we boarded the plane not long after.

First class is pretty nice! I didn't know the nice flight attendant would call me "Mr. Cheng" the entire time, and we had a fancy four-course dinner, which was a nice surprise after nearly starving myself at SeaSpace (the workshop we gave in the morning was from 10-1pm, there was no food in the speakers' room, and after the talk I had to scramble to get myself and all my gear to the airport!).

At our stop-over in Quito, I noticed that a lot of bags were being taken off of the airplane. "That's strange," I thought, but a bunch of people were de-planing, so it seemed to make sense. After arriving in Guayaquil, the luggage belt started rolling, and my three bags emerged -- followed by a huge stretch of emptiness. That's right. No one else's luggage had been on the airplane. What tremendous fortune that my bags had been tagged with Continental priority tags! I hope John gets his luggage tomorrow. We've been told that they will try to get the bags onto the same plane we're going to be flying to the Galapagos; it leaves from Quito, so in theory it shouldn't be a problem.

And now, I'm in a room at the Grand Hotel (our hotel van was escorted here by some nice police officers). I downgraded to a room with two double beds so John and I could check in without waking anyone else up (he had been placed in a room with someone already in it, and we doubted that the occupant would want to be jolted awake by a stranger at 2am). "Non-smoking, please," I reminded the guy at the front desk, but apparently "non-smoking" just means that no one is currently smoking in the room. Nevermind that the room reeks of smoke and that there is an ashtray and a book of matches on the table. I called down to verify that we were in a non-smoking room, but no one was excited to help me. It's bed time. Our wake-up call is in less than four hours.