Category — Ecuador

Three days home now – woke up to pancakes and eggs – I’m terible at making breakfast as it turns out. Got to practice that one.

Our flight home was of a similar nature to our flight out. Our delay this time left us in Dallas for the night with dinner and breakfast and lunch on American. Lony was there at the air port in the morning and we were in Tucson by late morning. I was home. A couple of phone calls and it was like I never left.

… and thus the blog ends until my next venture to Ecuador. Thanks for reading.

http://jpmizell.blogspot.com

We went to this park.. Parque Bolívar.. and there were Iguanas everywhere… umm… I don´t think you understand so you´ll have to look at Jon´s pictures. But seriously, EVERYWHERE. You step into the park and you can´t walk without stepping on them. They can´t walk without stepping onto each other. Hundreds of them. If you like Iguanas, it was pretty awesome. If you don´t .. it was still quite the site.

Tomorrow we fly… now, ¿where to eat?

After our wonderful last beer in Cuenca we shoved off for Guyaquil this morning at 7:00 AM and arrived. A short taxi ride into the center of the city dropped us on the curb to begin the ever present search for someplace to stash our stuff for the night. One hotel was $30. Seriously.. we didn´t win that much at the Casinos. So we walked. And to my delight Jon ducked into one that starting at $10 a night was at $8 five min later. For a centralized place to stay for a night, I was okay with $8. I stayed out front as Jon checked on the room to see that it was to our liking. All the while I noticed the neighbor store owner with a smirk on his face. Not too irregular for folks looking at me while I´ve got my pack on and I´m standing around 4 other bags. Soon after he disappeared his buddy appeared and he too had a smirk. I just thought they were jerks and when Jon came back we went to the room.

The place smelled like bleach. There was no carpet. The beds are hard. There is a full length mirror in the room. The shower is only cold. The elevator holds just Jon and all our gear. The place smells like bleach again. There is a rotating fan on the ceiling. It´s hot. The sheets are really clean. There is always a guy cleaning rooms it seems. Funny, the room next door was occupied when we arrived and now it´s not. Funny, the room is occupied again. It smells like bleach again, the guy is cleaning. That room was just occupied.

On our way out we passed a couple who had just checked into the hotel. A nice looking older gentlemen and a younger, smiling woman, dressed for the dance. He was eager to get to the room – perhaps he wanted to get out and see the city as soon as possible.

Jon and I returned to the hotel to drop some stuff and noticed our new neighbors had already checked out. I guess they didn´t like the accommodations. Perhaps they weren´t in Guyaquil for that long. Perhaps…. wait a second. What Kind Of HOTEL IS THIS!!!

People laugh, I laugh, every time we walk in and out. Two young American men, proudly, energetically, ducking into the Hotel Liberadador, the Guyaquil version of Notel-Motel.

Okay – I know I thought I was done with it all and the next two days were going to be boring bus trips and reading books in air ports, BUT after I wrote that last entry we went for beers. It was good. Good Beer.

We walked down to the popular hostel in Cuenca, one we had initially avoided because of the noise and lack of Ecuadorian culture. Alas, we were essentially done with our trip so what the heck, we didn´t need any culture, rather we needed to start getting back into the American swing of things.

Looking at the menu, a half liter of beer cost $1.70 – the place was a little pricey, BUT what the hey, we´ll have just one and see who shows up.. perhaps someone we know.. Half way through our beer a friendly German fellow asked to join us, I presume to practice his English. He was nice enough and kept us busy chatting about anything and everything – as it turns out he too was a German Economist.. interesting. I became slowly depressed as a table of American girls had sat to dinner and were quite friendly in humoring my questions on recommendations. Unwilling to totally abandon our new acquaintance, we sat and talked, just us dudes. One beer soon became two and guacamole arrived at the table and still we talked with the German. Anticipating an uneventful night conversation dwindled and was about dead when Felix, our German friend had a visitor. A very friendly, very cute lady from Austria. Austrian.. I´ve never met an Austrian. She entered the conversation, with English, and my energy perked a bit. Then halfway through some sentence.. some unimportant excuse for attention of a sentence enter 3 more friends. Two Swiss sisters and their new Swiss friend. WOW. Eager to find enough chairs to accommodate and prevent attrition we were all back sitting within 2 min. of their arrival finished with greetings and kisses and the whole shabang.

Of course we all returned to the normal conversation – what are you doing, where you from.. yadda, yadda, yadda.. but there is a difference in talking to a glass of beer and talking to a very attractive smiling team of Swiss traveling sisters. – oh delight!

¨And by the way, those Swiss chicks were hot, like uncalled for hot.¨ – Jon

2 Days until we depart Ecuador.

It seems not that long ago I was sitting on the beach in Baja California, Mexico with the Surf Club and I know it wasn´t that long ago that we were trying to convince Continental Airlines to let us on a flight out of Chicago. With our adventure almost over, it seems there isn´t as much to write about except lunches and taxi rides to find a bowling alley. I think I´m ready to be home and to not worry about how to say ¨Do you carry the Rambo Machete?¨ Alas, I will miss it a little, especially these keyboards with the super functionality, upsidedown question marks and such ¿?¿?¿ ñ ó .. .. I´ll add one last time to the travel blog before sealing it off until the next time I visit Ecuaodr when I arrive back in Tucson and with it perhaps a new collection of pictures from Jon´s camera.

A über long 5 page entry was added regarding our Sunday fun – and thus I didn´t send it out. I attempted to use MS Word to summarize, but Latin American Word just doesn´t assign the same importance to phrases. Thus I´ll attempt to summarise here – ¨We Went Hiking.¨
You´re welcome to read, as always.

Our Arrival Plan:
Jon and I will be arriving (according to plan) on an American Airlines Flight at approximatly 9:30 PM. We have a ride from the airport to Tucson from Lony, Jon´s pal, though we had a very gracious offer from Megan. If you´re wondering what I´m going to do when I get home.. I´ll tell you. I will take a shower. Hopefully there is hot water and shampoo.

Thanks for reading – see yáll soon.
Cheers!

John

http://bananas-to-ecuador.blogspot.com/