Sunday 16th April- bidding farewell to Ecuador.
We slept in for breakfast & were wokenby the hotel manager knocking on our door. Neither of us had had a good night's sleep. Graeme had been hit by the full effects of altitude sickness- dizzy, breathless, headache, and a feeling like he was aboard a boat. I, on the other hand, was suffering yesterday's visit to the beach without insect repellent, and the bites were coming out itching and swollen & literally driving me to distraction.
After a mad dash to put clothes on & throw what we could into our rucksacks, we had breakfast & said goodbye to Bernie, who was the first of our group to fly. We collected our clean washing & were picked up by Otto, our driver, for our pre arranged extra visit to Teleferico, via a cash point. We had not at the cash point- they are complicated affairs, were lots of people suddenly appear and the various cash points appear to take it in turns to have cash available, whilst the rest remain devoid of cash or English translation.
Teleferico, on the other hand, was great. We went with Emma & Kate, dropping Annie off in Quito on route. She had been looking on lonely planet & had a mornings itinery mapped out to visit various museums. Our driver advised her not to walk across town on her own, as robberies are high. She agreed she would get a $2 taxi across town once finished at her first museum.
We bought our tickets once dropped off, which were $9 each, and boarded the cable car, taking us up high above the city. Both Graeme & Emma don't like heights, but both were determined to excercise mind over matter and do it. We were lucky enough to have gone early, so missed the clouds and also the clouds, which began to come in thick & fast after we reached the top. Once off the cable car, we visited a small chapel, took a short walk past llama's & then to a cafe with full length windows out over the hills and city below. We ordered 4 Irish coffees, which were absolutely delicious. By the time we left the cafe, the cloud cover had blocked the view completely. We took the cable car back down & Graeme wanted to sit with a view of the drop to challenge himself further. He ended up holding Kate's hand to ease his nerves - much to our amusement. He soon settled in to the journey & actually began to enjoy it ( when we were going past trees). Both he & Emma did great. We have had a lot of personal achievements on this trip & it has been great to be part of such a supportive group. Once back at the hotel, via another cash point, we showered, changed and finished packing, leaving our bags with reception. We looked for Beth, who had said she would come with us for lunch, but couldn't see her. We headed to the small village, thinking she might have gone ahead, as we got back late. We past a little church and a village square with a park, before arriving at a gorgeous little hidden gem of a pub. The food was good, the surroundings excellent and the decor quirky, which was right up my street. Beth wasn't there, so we missed saying a proper goodbye, which was a shame. Graeme had 2 huge steins of beer, whilst the rest of us polished off 2 bottles of wine. It was a lovely afternoon and a fantastic end to this part of the trip. We were even joined by a gorgeous bright green hummingbird, which was the icing on the cake for a truly wonderful trip. We again joked about us being in the Trueman Show, as originally we had hoped to go to a place known for having lots of hummingbirds, but it would have taken too long, and we had to ensure we were back in time to catch our next flight. It was amazing that we still got to see a hummingbird without doing the 4 hour round trip! Magical. We have promised to keep in touch with the rest of the group & definitely will. I feel like we have made some good friends over the shared experiences. It will feel strange to now move on without them.
We headed to the airport in a taxi provided by Much Better Adventures, and then the fun started…
Neither of us are very technically minded & in truth, I don't really understand modern technology, it's meant to make life easier, but in truth is a million times more complicated than it needs to be. Our flight wasn't showing on the screens, but we spotted a Latham Airlines queue, so approached the member of staff, who sent us to a self check in point, where another member of staff helped us check in. He then printed out luggage labels for our backpacks going into the hold. We then had to go back to the first queue, who sent us to a different queue to drop our bags off, where we had to show all of our paperwork again, and even show our flight details for when we leave Peru ( despite us not being in Peru yet, and trying to exit Ecuador). This meant opening another app kiin my phone using the airport WiFi, which is possibly being powered by one of the Ecuadorian sloths…It eventually opened & I screen shot the details, as told I would have to show these again going through security. I showed our documents at security, but discovered I was in the wrong queue, I'd inadvertently gone into the domestic flights bit. After that queue, we went through security without any problem, then through passport control & showed our documents again! I've met that many of the staff during my self check in, I'm half expecting an invite to the next staff night out!
Once through, the airport is spotlessly clean, comfortable & with plenty of restaurants, bar and shops. There's also free charging stations in the seating areas.
I visited the immaculate loos and did a Graeme…I got flushed by the automatic loo flusher. For some reason the loo roll dispenser is a distance away from the loo and so low down, it's nearly on the floor. As soon as I learnt forward to reach it, flush…! I clearly wasn't the only one as the flushers were going almost constantly and there was only one other person in there.
Meanwhile, Graeme was shown a picture of some luggage & asked if it was his. It wasn't. Someone else must have had a bit of trouble at the self check out.
We boarded the flight and headed off to Peru!
Regardless of what happens next, we've had an absolute blast!
Speak soon ( if there's WiFi!)
Caroline
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