give thanks to twitter

The first 48-hours of my trip to Ecuador were especially kind to me and I must give thanks to Twitter. I cyber hitchhiked a ride to Westlake Center to grab the light rail to Sea-Tac for my red-eye flight to Miami and Domenic (@DEPagliaro) answered the call. Domenic is a fellow Philadelphia sports fan and we’ve bantered back and forth on Twitter for months. I even lured him into Travelers’ Night In and he’s become a faithful participant (except when he's responding to respond to oil spills, hurricane recovery efforts, and other emergency situations for the oil and gas industry).

Shortly after touchdown at one of my top three least fave domestic airports, Miami International Airport, I was picked up by Raquel (@AiresLibre), one of the folks who donated to The Global Citizen Project, who’s also grown to be one of my fave Twitter friends. We headed to Little Havana for a proper Cuban breakfast of empanadas, pastelitos and croqeutas – all washed down with strong Cuban coffee. Afterwards, we cruised along Ocean Drive before stopping at Lincoln Road Mall where we split a pre-flight bottle of Prosecco. Before noon. Raquel is a girl after my heart who knows bubbly has no time and place boundaries. Amen.

Happy and sated, I breezed through TSA and boarded my flight for Quito. Upon arrival, I hopped in a (prearranged) cab and headed to The Secret Garden hostel in the San Blas section of town ($10 cab fare, pre-arranged via the hostel). I dropped off my bags, quickly freshened up, and met up with Alison (@aliadventures7), a travel blogger based in Atlanta, who was in Quito taking a Spanish immersion course. Over Cuba Libres and Pilseners, we dished about Twitter, the travel personalities of Twitter, and globetrotting in general. As Alison poured herself into a cab to head home, I walked up the hill to The Secret Garden with an ear-to-ear smile on my face. In less than 48-hours, I met three really great people my path probably never would have intersected with without the power of Twitter.