Bit more on Ecuador

Friday 22nd February

When you fly into Quito airport you need all your strength. As it is approx. 2800 metres high the air is thin, so the pilot has to come in at a speed that feels like flat out! Hard braking on the runway and then out into an atmosphere that not only feels cold after the coast, but is also well laced with traffic fumes.

The traffic in Quito makes Dublin seem like a free flow area. Lots of horn blowing and pushing and shoving to get into the lane required. There is one major difference to Dublin though - the red lights mean stop and they are obeyed. Pedestrians are ignored, or hooted at, unless the lights are red, or you have gambled and stepped out onto a Zebra crossing. Mobile phones are mainly used whilst driving! What else can you do sitting in the traffic all day. The drivers can be quite lunatic in behaviour. One way streets mean not too much traffic with you when going the wrong way, just lots of flashing lights and hooting.

The first night in Quito saw "wild" celebrations of Val's birthday and the meeting up with Fiona, David, Tony, Evy, Mary, Daire & Amy. We all had a lovely meal in the bistro restaurant of the Marriott Hotel. Then off to sleep for everyone.

Val & I flew back to Guayaquil on Thursday afternoon, with a 2 hour delay in the plane whilst it was repaired. No problem with the flight. Complimentary food and drinks, as there was on the way up to Quito. Ryanair and Aer Lingus how are you.

Approaching Guayaquil, say about 300 miles out, the flooding became visible. There has been continuous and very heavy rain for about a week. There must be 1000's of houses flooded out and fields under water as far as I could see. The conditions on the ground must be appalling. The airport has a deep ditch all around it, and it looked to be pretty full on approach. We got a taxi at the airport OK. It was a bit old, ie ancient with about 300,000 kilometres showing on the clock. It got us to the hotel all right, but in the torrential downpour leaving the airport we found the windows, although closed, didnt quite keep the rain out! The wipers were a bit dodgy too! But for US$5 what can you expect? I have requested a modern taxi for the 2 hour trip tomorrow to La Libertad and BlueFlyer.

We found Ecuador to be a lovely country with very friendly people, though not a lot of English is spoken. the coastal area is very flat, thus the severe flooding, and the mountains, the Andes, are very high & steep. We travelled on the Pan American highway to Ottavalo. Very twisty with steep fall off on the outside, and no barriers at all. The Health & Safety people would have canaries here. This highway runs from Alaska to Tierre del Fuego on the south tip of Chile, about 10,500 kilometres in all, 880 in Ecuador. One thing we all noticed is the lack of smoking, and the lack of bad public behaviour. No Saturday night hooliganism. Shortage of money and a lot of police might have a bearing on this.

Unfortunately we parted with both JR, who crossed the Carribean and the Panama Canal with us, and Rob who left Las Palmas with us, traversing the Atlantic, some island sailing and the Carribean sea and Panama Canal. We will sorely miss both of them.

However we are looking forward to sailing to The Galapagos with Daire and then on to Oz with Shin. Just received a message from Daire. He is caught up in Cusco as the city is closed by rioting and he is unsure of making our departure time. We'll see how it works out.