November 15th & so to Ecuador

Spent our last morning by the pool chilling out after a walk around town during which R managed to cash some travellers cheques – a process which took about 20 minutes and included numerous checks and photocopies of his passport and each individual cheque. It seems that banks in the north of Peru are not accustomed to dealing with this sort of thing, but in the light of subsequent experience in Ecuador, they are reasonably advanced!

Our short flight to Lima was in the early evening and we then found ourselves back in the hotel we had left four weeks earlier albeit for less than 12 hours as we were taken to Lima airport at 7.15 for our onward flight to Quito.

One thing we have not yet mentioned is the traffic in the major towns in Peru and more importantly the rules of the road or rather lack of them – it is every man or woman for themselves and zebra crossings although they exist are ignored, so for a pedestrian it is often a death-defying feat crossing the road! This led R to observe that he would never ever contemplate hiring a car in Peru, the nerves wouldn’t stand it! We endured a very laborious 1 ½ hour procedure to get to the departure hall, involving 4 queues, one to check in and drop bags, one to pay the airport tax, one to get through security and the final one to get through passport control.

Finally on our way this time with the airline TACA instead of LAN we spent the flight chatting to a charming Norwegian gentleman who works for the government advising developing countries on the responsible development of their oil industries and who spends about 20 weeks a year travelling all over the world. His knowledge of English was impeccable and if you closed your eyes you would not believe he was not a native - puts us Brits to shame!

Landing at Quito was “interesting” as the airport is right in the city and there are strong currents when coming in to land (Quito is at 2800m and surrounded by mountains) so it was a bit bumpy and it was a relief to land! We were met by our rep William (an interesting name for an Ecuadorian) who will be our driver and guide for most of the time, after checking in at the hotel we took a short walk around the main square once the storm and heavy rain had ceased and took dinner in a charming restaurant William recommended. The owner was extremely welcoming – possibly because we were the only diners! – and showed us the old photos of Quito on the walls, there were several old telephones and even a juke box there too and at the end of the meal he gave us some Ecuadorian stickers and a flag! We have promised to return in 3 weeks for our last night on this trip. (PS we did not……)