DAY 1: After a crazed morning of last-minute packing, a run to the Home Depot for luggage locks and some Dunkin´ Donuts bagel sticks, I had a final lunch at Chili´s with my parents and brother, who all took the day off to send me off. (You can all say "Aww..." in unison now, like the live studio audience used to do on Happy Days.) I short drive down the New Jersey Turnpike, and we arrived at Continental Terminal C at Newark Liberty International Airport.

"Where is your returning ticket out of Ecuador?" the Continental Airlines attendant asked.

"Oh, I´m just gonna take a bus into Peru," I answered.

"Where is the bus ticket then?"

"I was gonna get it there."

"Immigration won´t let you into Ecuador without proof that you are leaving."

I pleaded and pleaded, explaining that I was going around the world, and my flight out of South America would be in Buenos Aires in March. I showed her the tickets and the printout of the itinerary I got from Airtreks.

"Anyone could have made that printout with any computer," another employee butted in.

I was starting to freak out; this was all news to me. I had never heard of that from other travelers. "So, what are my options then?" I asked.

"You can buy a ticket back to here," the woman said.

"And just get a full refund at Continental in Bogota," the other said.

"Quito," I corrected.

"Right, Quito."

"And it´s 100% refundable, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay, book it."

The woman got me a ticket, from Quito to Newark, leaving November 30. Total cost: $914.18 (US). In the immortal words of Keanu Reeves, Whoa.

While waiting around the airport, I looked up in my Lonely Planet South America guide, and lo and behold, it is explained the strict rules of Ecuadorean immigration, and that the buy-a-ticket-get-a-refund loophole was a common trick. Most South American countries are not like this, Ecuador is just the exception. I´d have to get a tourist card at customs and keep it with me at all times or suffer deportation.

THE DEPARTURE TIME WAS LATE by about 40 minutes, so I just hung out until it was time to board. "How long is the layover in Bogota?" I asked the flight attendant.

"About an hour," she replied. "Itching to get home to Quito, huh?"

I flashed my US passport. "No, I´m just going to visit."

"Oh," she said with slight embarassment.

This is not a total surprise to me, it happens all the time. As a Filipino-American, I´ve been mistaken for Columbian, Mexican, Ecuadorean, Peruvian, Argentine, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian...everything but a White Guy. Well, maybe on the phone I have been.

I sat in the aisle seat of a three-seater, next to a pretty young woman with an Ecuadorean passport, who was traveling with her mother I assumed. I had noticed her back in the airport lounge. She had dark, Jennifer Aniston hair, a really pretty face, decked out in tight jeans, a belly shirt and Adidas sneakers. Hell, why sugar-coat it, she was a hottie. But she wasn´t much of a conversationalist unless it was to her mother. More or less she just slept or constantly stroked her hair most of the time, like she was her Ecuadorean Barbie doll.

I passed the six hour flight reading The Alchemist, the book I read last New Year´s that inspired me to take this trip in the first place. When the cabin lights went out, I illuminated it with my iBook to work on some pending web design gigs I had. I pretty much ignored the in-flight movie, Foreign Affairs a made-for-TV movie from 1991 with Brian Dennehy. I caught the last half of Legally Blonde 2, which I watched in Spanish to get into the mood. Then I slept until we touched down for our layover in Bogota, Columbia.

I WOKE UP WHEN A TEAM OF COLUMBIANS BOARDED THE PLANE, all decked in black suits, for a security check. One of them questioned me in Spanish, and I was totally clueless. "Oh, sorry, you look like you speak Spanish."

Once back in the air, we were served a stupid little roll of ham and cheese, along with a packet of "Salsa," but upon opening it, it was honey mustard. "What is that?" the Ecuadorean hottie asked.

"Honey mustard."

"You really don´t speak Spanish?" She was probably confused all to hell, especially when she saw me write "TRINIDAD" in my customs form. I explained to her my Filipino roots, and how I was traveling to Quito to learn Spanish. Pretty soon we were chatting it up in broken Spanish and broken English.

Her name was Erika (yes, with a K too) and had been visiting her cousins in New Jersey for the past month. She was on her way home to Quito to chill out for a couple more months before going back for another semester of law school. I showed her my guidebook and she pointed out places in Quito to see and show me where she lived.

"I will give you my phone number," she said in her beautiful accent. Immediately I felt like yelling "SCORE!" like the headbopping Roxbury Boys from Saturday Night Live used to do, but I kept that inside thankfully.

"When can I call you?"

"Anytime."

"Do you have a job until school?"

"No, I have nothing to do."

"I´ll call you Saturday -- Sabado -- then."

"Okay, anytime," she said in her accent. But then she continued, "If I am not there, leave a message with my husband. His English is better than mine."

I´m still debating whether or not I should call or not.

IT HAD JUST RAINED IN QUITO when I touched down and the ground was still wet. It was a little humid, and in the upper 70s, quite a change from the coming New York winter I had just left. I walked to the customs room and waited on an incredibly long line, behind a couple of German guys, one of which farted a stench like his ass had been in a musty old attic for 30 years. Ah, yes, welcome to Ecuador.

I had my passport, declarations, and newly-purchased return ticket ready for my proof of departure. The line was so long that the customs officer didn´t care to even look at it. Then I asked him about the tourist card I read about in the Lonely Planet guide and he told me it wasn´t necessary. All that stress for nothing.

A taxi took me through the dark streets of Quito. It reminded me of Lima, Peru and the northern section of Melbourne, Australia in a weird sort of way. We drove to the gringo district, so I didn´t have to deal with the language barrier so late at night. My hostel, The Magic Bean, let me in, and they did in fact, get my reservation via email.

It was nearing midnight and everything was closing up, so I just turned in to my bed in my four-share dorm room. The pounding of techno music of a nightclub a block away echoed through the night, and its hypnotic trance put me to sleep...until the DJ mixed in "Jungle Boogie."

Special Thanks to Jenn Agas for pledging The Global Trip 2004 Pledge Drive. (Hope you like that mug.) More Special Thanks to Roslyn Agas, Ryan Dunlavey and Marsha Steffen for their generous donations as well! I´ll send the first round of postcards when I get to a more interesting place, perhaps the Galapagos Islands.

Has anyone out there from upstate New York tried to send me a FedEx package? It was signature delivery, and I wasn´t around, and now it´s in FedEx limbo.

If you enjoy this daily travel blog, please post a comment! Give me suggestions, send me on missions, let me know how things are going back home in the USA. Knowing that I have an audience will only force me to make this blog more entertaining as the days go by. Don´t forget to bookmark it and let a friend know!