Travel Log Week 7

Monday 14.8.00 Guayaquil We had an appointment back at the Consulate first thing to collect the additional letter from them to back up our other documentation for Customs clearance, emphasising that we are bona fide travellers, which Rocio Torres had prepared. Now Colin Armstrong the Honourary Consul was back and he signed it for us. Chris Bailey reminded us about the invitation to the Phoenix Club tonight: he organises a "hot curry" night for the Expat Brits one Monday a month and would we like to go? He could not make it himself due to other commitments but it sounded like a great chance to meet some interesting people, so we readliy agreed. Armed with all the paperwork we went over to Flamingo Shipping to see the people there. Our man was at lunch and as soon as he got back he copied all the stuff he needed and we all jumped into a taxi for the run down to the main Port, 6 up in a Lada. On the way down we saw our best bumper sticker so far "Motorcyclists are People too!" We were ushered straight into the office of the Chief Customs officer, past a lot of people who had obviously been waiting ages. We got lots of funny looks and the main man got straight on the case. It was apparently not going to be a problem to do the extra documents require. Then he asked our guy for the name of the ship we were taking. At this point we realised we were just about to be booked on a ship leaving for Miami on the 24th which was probably not going to be our best option; the wrong side of the States, a 10 day voyage and a long wait, plus we would have to fly ourselves there at extra cost. With Wilson translating we established that they would not be able to complete the paperwork without a name whereas we thought we'd only come in for one extra form. Our Shipping man was, of course, interested in helping out given he would get the business, but we decided not to commit at this point as we would be running out of time to get to Alaska if we did it this way. So 6 up back to the office and they looked at alternative ships for us, the best of which seemed to be into Long Beach, USA but we would have to spend $US2200 on a container and it would still not be there for 2 weeks. We said we would have a look at our other options and let them know what we would like to do as soon as we could. The fishingboat guys still had not come back so Wilson went home to chase them and we agreed to meet up later and show them some English Culture at the Phoenix Club, where Adam was hoping to find a cold Guinness as Chris thought they may just have some left over from the last 40' container they imported -sounded good! Wilson & Mary turned up in a taxi with the news that the fishingboat guys had said they could not do the paperwork for 2 weeks but they had some mates who could do the job, cost about $US 4000!

So it was all round to the Club and sure enough it was just like a little slice of England a nice bar with Pewter Beermugs (though no Guinness unfortunately), Dartboard, Reading Room and a Pool table (no room for a Snooker table). We were made very welcome. There are only about 50 odd Brits in Ecuador and we met about 20 in one go many with similar stories to Chris; came out for a short spell and ended up staying, some wonderful tales there. We had a few beers and dinner was served. The curry was indeed delicious. It transpired that Chris had made a special effort and laid on an "extra hot" session knowing three rough bikers would appreciate it -he was not wrong either. Adam was reasonably restrained but John had a second helping of the "extra", not bad for someone who claims not to eat a lot, and Paul was looking pretty flushed afterwards as well! We had not met Colin the Consul until now, he was wonderfully helpful, indeed as was everyone. We learned a lot about local issues and customs in a short time. He introduced us to Hans, a German shipper who said he could maybe help with sea or air freight but again passengers on cargo ships would be out of the question. John, an ex Stockbroker and Pro Darts player organised a game of Darts Cricket in which the losers end up paying the bar tab which was good fun. Les, who works for FIFA out here was telling us the reasons behind switching to US$; for example he had done a good business deal in Sucres one morning but at that time speculation and hence inflation was so bad that by the close of banking the same day he had lost money! He also told us he was part of the liason team for Man Utd when they played in this years World Club Championship out here and contrary to what the British Press say he found David Beckham to be a pleasant and intelligent guy. Polite and well sussed out Beck's had handled all his press calls really well so don't beleive all you read in the papers! So another interesting day although no route onwards yet confirmed and it was back to the room via the shotgun toting sweet salesman who has now got to recognise us a bit so he doesn't have one hand on the gun when he serves!

Tuesday 15.8.00 Guayaquil Paul woke up feeling really rough with flu-like symptoms which seemed to be getting worse by the hour so we decided to keep him in for the day, while Adam & John looked into further options for travel and waited on news from Hans the shipper we'd met last night. After faxing Flamingo requesting confirmation of shipping dates & times, John went round the Post Office, (the Pet salesman's display today was a pair of Turtles flanking a White Mouse! ) while Adam went to the Consulate to see if he could get the Sony Laptop communicating again, as once more the 0845 number we connect to in the UK is barred by the Ecuadorian phone system for some reason. Chris Bailey kindly volunteered the services of their company IT dept and it was off upstairs with Carlos Suarez to wrestle with phone and network connections to try and get the Vaio talking to something/anything, in order to download some software from the UK which should allow us to use local phone systems here. We were eventaully able to recieve though not send. Thank you all again for your messages - good to hear from you! Chris kindly agreed to foward all our mail round their network to his machine and back to the UK, plus we got a message out to Expedition Freight's agents here to get confirmation on the Airfrieght option. Then it turned out that the passwords we'd been given for the new software did not function so just like being at work, a typical IT day loads of "too-clever-by-half ware" none of which actually works as advertised, no surprise there then!

Leaving Carlos to get on with his real work it was back to see Paul who was looking worse now with aches & pains and we then recieved a fax from Andesaerotrans confriming their rates, also with an option of getting into Mexico City, which we felt was worth asking about in order to catch up some time without missing too much. The rates looked good, cheaper than buying a sea container but no indication how soon we could fly or whether we could travel with the bikes. This is where it was really frustrating having the Vaio offline as we could have done with emailing straight back with these questions, but we had to try to get a fax back via the hotel by which time they had closed for business. It was then round to the DHL office to see if our parcel had turned up from the UK. It had but at the other depot in town and we needed to go there tomorrow as there was a problem with Customs Clearance, same old story! On the way back we noticed that the Pet salesman had gone home, sold out, and his pitch was taken by a guy selling new Beretta automatic pistols. He was demonstrating one to a customer as we passed loading the clip and banging it in then waving about while we ducked for cover! So that was as much as we could do for today and while Adam & Paul had supper in the Hotel, John went out clubbing with Wilson at a couple of local places. He's turning into quite a night owl, so much for being in bed by 9pm!

Wednesday 16.8.00 Guayaquil Paul was still feeling very rough with full on flu symptoms so he had to stay in bed while Wilson, John & Adam went round to the Consulate to borrow the phone line again. Overnight Paul Hooper had faxed the updated paswords for the Vaio comms link. However although once installed, it now recieved perfectly there was still a problem sending so Chris Bailey kindly lent Adam his own machine to email Tony Hunt, the Martins Rubber IT wizard, the error messages so maybe we can finally get it running tomorrow. Chris also spoke directly to AndesAeroTrans to try and shift things along for a price and most importantly flight dates to Panama, Costa Rica and we were now thinking of Mexico City as well, since this would catch us up some time without losing out on too much scenery. They promised to call him back in the afternoon and we went back to the Hotel to meet Hans Dassau who confirmed that he could get our bikes onto a container to Panama leaving on Saturday but we would still have to fly ourselves seperately as there was definately no way a cargo ship could take passengers.

We all had lunch while Paul took a break from Cinecanal and then set off to the airport DHL office to collect a parcel which had been sent from England with more DV tapes etc for us. We had the fax with the Airway Bill reference and found the office again, only slightly surprised to see that it had an Observation Tower over the front door, and a bloke up in it with yet another pump action shotgun. We checked in through "security" and found Ricardo Cedeno, who spoke English. He was ever so apologetic and said that the parcel was still in Customs who wanted US$ 690 duty to clear it, which we felt was a touch expensive! Ricardo took all the details of our trip and promised to contact the UK office to see if he could get some different paperwork which would help and the standard time anyway for Customs is 5 days! So we left it with him and will give him a ring when he's got the "right" paperwork and see if that helps the price/time.

It was Ecuador v Bolivia in the World Cup Qualifiers on TV so the whole city stopped at 4pm to watch; when Ecuador scored after 20 minutes they went wild and the second half goal had them dancing even more, plus the odd shot going off! A quick visit to Rocia Torres at the Consulate established that we'd heard nothing back from the air freighters, so they were on the action list for tomorrow; plus Wilson has a contact at another Airfreight company which may be worth trying. We spent all evening watching films. Paul was feeling a lot better by now so hopefully he was over the worst, and we could get some flights confirmed tomorrow as time was slipping by; we'd mentally allocated a week to get our connection sorted but it was proving more difficult to tie down a good solution than we expected, given that the fact that we could not go by sea along with the bikes was something we'd not anticipated. We always knew this bit of the Trip would be difficult and we'd have to make it up when we got here, but at least all the people we spoke to said DEFINATELY do not risk Columbia at present; as Chris put it there is an 80% chance of going through untroubled if you stick only to the main highway and safe hotels but if you hit that 20% chance of trouble at best you will spend 6 months in the jungle waiting for a ransom to be paid. John thought it might be an interesting experience but we don't need interesting experiences that much!

Thursday 17.8.00 Guayaquil With Paul now feeling much better today's plan was to try and chase up the Airfreught option as the prices we had been quoted were very good and it looked like we could fly the bikes to Mexico City for about US$1200 which would be cheaper than seafreight to Panama, and we were beginning to feel under time pressure now. We had decided that if we had to miss any section of landscape along the way, probably Central America was the bit we'd be least worried about dropping, given that we'd always known it was impossible to do the whole distance overland due to there being no roads across the Darien Gap between Panama and Columbia (one guy we read up on tried for 3 years to ride it and ended up having to dismantle the bike and have it portered by hand in pieces through the swamps, paying off bandits as he went - not something we wish to do! ), and the situation in Columbia is now going from bad to worse. Chris Bailey said that yesterday a load of kids on a school bus got killed after being caught in crossfire between rival guerilla factions and we are not about to take the risk of being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although we have not actually lost that much time on the ground yet, Paul has to be back home before too long for the birth of his next child (which was a happy occurrence but came after we had finalised the dates of the Trip!) We had also all got into the routine of being able to jump on the bikes and ride each day. Overall since we started out in Punta Arenas we could probably actually only have saved a couple of days along the way and this is the longest we have been stopped in one place since then; but it feels very frustrating not to be able to move on at will, when we know time is running short for weather in the north as well.

Aeroandestrans the Airfreighters had not faxed us at the Hotel so we went round to the Consulate where Rocio kindly phoned them. The man was out but phoned back to say he was coming down from his head office in Quito to Guayaquil tomorrow and would meet us at 10.00 to sort out the paperwork. He said it would not be a problem to get the bikes on a Continental flight Monday night so we left it at that, with all the details to be confirmed in the meeting tomorrow morning. Rocio said that we should book our passenger flights immediately as it is packed trying to get out of here, which she kindly did for us though the only free seats were Business Class with Continental as well, so we put a reservation on those, to at least get something allocated while we sorted the paperwork and packing. She tells us that many people go at this time of year to the US for Christmas shopping, both personal and commercial buyers, and it is a nightmare trying to get a flight of any sort to the States. So feeling like we had maybe got something moving we went round to the coffee shop on the Park for an excellent Cappuccino and lunch, and chatted through our next few moves.

Given that the roads and route options we would have in Mexico and N America should allow decent progress each day, we reckoned that although Mexico is a huge country we should be able to get to Las Vegas easily in a week, and fulfil one of John's dreams by riding down the Strip at night and parking the bikes in front of Ceasar's Palace. Not that it is likely we will stay at that Hotel, probably not quite comfortable enough for us (!) but one of those little things that we've had in mind as a milestone since we started talking about the Trip 3 years ago -like riding in Tierra del Fuego and along Lake Titicaca. We spent some more time in the Parque Bolivar watching the Iguanas, there are lots of them and it is really freaky, as they poke their heads out of the flowerbeds, absolutely stock still for minutes on end so that you don't actually notice them, but close up they are breathing quietly, then they just wander off to another spot of sun. They climb 40' up into the trees in the park no problem and if you look up you can just spot them hidden in amongst leaves with the squirrels. Its surprising how high they go given that the big ones are up to 3' long including the tails. One pair we saw started having a fight and one chased the other out of the shrubs and literally straight up a tree, scattering the people, as suddenly they were stood right up off the ground on their legs and rocketing along at a hell of a rate right, up the tree to the top, then the one in front slipped and fell what must have been 30' back down onto the stone path making a sound a bit like a piece of old wood when it hit the ground. All the women screamed and ran as this Iguana came plummeting down at them and it did not move for a while, but after a few minutes it seemed to recover and moved off slowly, but when you look at them it's really strange their eyes are stone cold and you have no idea what they are thinking, if anything! They don't half move fast when they want to (Adam now realised that it must have been one of these zooming across the road back near Puira last week), and it made you appreciate that some of the action sequences from Jurassic Park and Walking with Dinosaurs must be pretty close to reality. We would not like to see one of these things 20' high!

Wilson & Mary had invited us round for the evening so we went back to the room for a freshen up, again encountering the language barrier; Paul phoned down for some extra towels to be brought up. The guy said "OK Towels, Si, you want Fried Eggs". "No, no, Towels." "Ah, Si, Towels, OK". Moments later a waiter knocked on the door with a menu! We've had a few problems with learning the accents in each region. Just when we think we have got a phrase worked out we move on and at the next stop we say the same thing and get a blank expression. Early on we also got "un quento" and "la quenta" mixed up, we spent 2 weeks asking waiters to "tell me a story" instead of "bring me the bill" no wonder we got a few funny looks! The other night we spent several minutes ordering 3 cheesecakes for pudding and just to confirm he had it right the waiter summed up with "OK you want fried chicken". Oh well back to pointing at things again. Wilson came round in the pickup for us, stopping on the way back to collect neice Andrea, where we also bought 2 crates of beer for the evening. We were made very welcome at their house, meeting his Mother & Father, Julio & Mariuzi, some friends, Lenny & her boyfriend, and of course the kids, Fabian is 5 and the new one is 6 months. After a wonderful fish dinner Wilson turned up the stereo (actually his DJ rig) full blast and it was dancing Salsa and some western stuff till 2 in the morning. It's amazing, in England the neighbours would have been round complaining after 30 seconds but here, and it was VERY loud, not a problem. The young ones slept on the sofa right through all the noise - they do start them early on partying in Ecuador. Adam & John decided they ought to get back and went for a taxi; the first vehicle along was a farm mazda pickup out at night touting for fares but actually a nice ride just sat on the back. However even though he was pissed Wilson still took the plate number in case of problems and phoned to make sure we'd got back safely, again mostly never a problem but you have to be careful. Paul kept going till 5 and the girls ended up dragging Wilson back to dance, as he kept trying to go to sleep, so Paul won the endurance title yet again! Hopefully tomorrow we would be able to confirm our next move and look foward to getting back on the road.

Mary, John, Lenny, Wilson, Mariuzi, Andrea, dinner at Wilsons', Guayaquil

Click on photo for larger image

Friday 18.8.00 Guayaquil Up early, if not bright, we were looking foward to getting on with booking our Airfreight and went round to the Consulate for our meeting at 10.00, while Wilson offered to go up to the airport during the day to talk to some people he knew. When we got there Rocio said that the guy had phoned to say he would be late so we went out for a coffee as there was nothing else we could do but wait. We returned an hour later to find that he had been and gone but both Rocio and Chris were now seriously concerned that he could actually do the job. He was now saying that we would have to get the bikes up to Quito and fly from there and also that Continental did not do freight, which Chris had already privately queried previously. So Chris suggested we go round to see a Customs Agent that he uses, to see what they could do as there IS a lot of airfreight out of Guayaquil and maybe they could sort something with their contacts. So more than a little frustrated off we went to the address and found to our complete exasperation that it was the very same office we had tried to get into last Friday, then sealed with a big steel door. Today though, the padlocks were off and Luis Arteaga got straight on the phone to his freinds at the airport to check flights out and since it turned out he had been a very useful motorcycle racer in his youth we were on the right wavelength straight away. His son made a call to Aeroandestrans to check their flights details as well and then it was a question of waiting yet again. We chatted about bikes and rally cars till their freighters came back and confirmed we could get a flight out on Monday midnight with KLM to Miami, then on via Houston back to Mexico City. We decided to pursue this option as we had confidence that they knew what they were doing, so we drove over with Luis's son to the freighters but by now it was mid afternoon and there was no chance of doing Customs paperwork today. They could offer us a range of places to go to and we took a moment out to try to talk through the various pro's & cons. We could go to Mexico City still, but after the dissapointment of more complications this morning we were feeling even more under time pressure. The cheapest option was to Miami but that would put us on the wrong side of the US with a 5 day ride across to get back on our route north. Reluctantly we thought it was probably best to compromise and go to Houston almost directly north from here but of course if we wanted see Mexico we would have to swing south and ride in and out. So decision time and we confirmed Houston, at least it was central and once we were there we could review the situation and decide what to do next, with potentially only the US/Canada and the Canada/Alaska borders to cross which should be straightfoward, and depending on how many miles we decided to cover we would plan foward various options from there and include Mexico or not as we saw fit. So that done we went back to their office for them to complete the preparation of Customs paperwork, unlike our seafreighter on Moday there was now no problem with our Passport Temporary Import stamps for the bikes so that had been another red herring (we hope!). They said the bikes would have to be crated rather than palletised and we asked if we could get that done on Saturday, which was no problem and they would send one of their guys round to the Hotel to take us to the packers in the morning. Andesaerotrans had phoned back in the meantime to say that they could not now airfreight motorcycles at all due to dangerous cargo limitations, so that at least we knew we'd been right not to waste any more time waiting for them. Luis Arteaga then offered to help us with the passenger flight booking and while John & Paul waited there to confirm the options, Adam went back to the Consulate to check the bookings we had already taken options on. Between Rocio and Luis we got the Continental flights confirmed for Tuesday 0630 since we did not want to leave here before the bikes did just in case of any last minute hitches!

So at last, a route out and with people we have confidence in, so Chris Bailey offered to take us round to the "Phoenix Club" for a beer which sounded very pleasant. Adam also downloaded the new mails there Once again thanks for all your messages and we have a stack ready to go out just as soon as we can send again! Paul and John arrived some time later after Luis Arteaga insisted in taking them for a spin around the city in his new Subaru 2.5WRC, at quite a rate of knots, he does drive quick and knows the streets here really well as a result of the motorcycle races which used to be held around the roads. We'd already made Chris late for dinner and he kindly offered to take us out "for a steak". After checking exactly what a "steak" was we gladly accepted and went over to the biggest Parilla place ever, there must have been 100 tables inside and a queue on the pavement waiting to go in, so we went to a smaller one nearby. It was really good, the best steaks we've had in S America and it was really nice chatting to Chris and getting under the skin of the country. It is a great place to bring up kids, good education and opportunities and the kids are still able to go to school unescorted and ride bikes and horses around without worries. He also said one major difference here is that while people may rob you as is possible anywhere in the world you don't seem to get the mindless violence that happens at home, with idiots starting fights for fun and kicking people in. Apparently his neighbours also have really noisy parties from time to time it is just a normal part of Guayaquil life and no-one takes any notice, though he does find it tricky sometimes at 5 in the morning!

He confirmed that compared to the Andes we would probably find central America a lot less interesting and very much agreed that we'd be better off having more time to see something of N America. After a very pleasant meal we went back to the Landcruiser to go back to the Hotel and as we got in a gentleman came over and explained that he had been watching the car for Chris to keep it safe and how about a tip. Chris gave him a Quarter and the gentleman then said that he was worth a bigger tip since he also had a gun to help protect the car and produced a double barreled pistol just to demonstrate how helpful he'd been. Chris gave him another Quarter which seemed to satisfy him and we drove off. Of itself a minor incident but you need to know the ropes to handle this stuff correctly - we were glad he had not been "protecting" our bikes for us. Wilson phoned to see if we'd been sucessful and if not he'd got some other options but hopefully everything was now proceeding properly and we would be able to get the bikes out of the secure parking in the morning and get them packed. So at last some progress to ease our worries and frustration if not an ideal solution.

Saturday 19.8.00 Guayaquil We were up bright & early (really!) to go round and collect the bikes, one slight problem was that we could not remember where we had left them, but after going to the Unihotel where Wilson works, one of the guys there took us round, we'd only been one corner short after all it had been over a week since we'd dropped them off in the middle of the night. We paid the men who'd looked after them. They'd done a good job and had the pleasure of riding again at last round to the Sol de Oriente. We loaded up all the stuff we were going to freight with the bikes and our guide from Luis Arteaga jumped on with John to guide us up to the packers. It was a lovely ride out to a small unit alongside the airport and once we arrived they took an inventory of the kit while we stripped down the bikes. They said we had to load them as hazardous cargo, fair enough we drained down the fuel and were told to disconnect the batteries and tape the terminals up to prevent sparks. Meantime some other guys dissapeared and came back with a load of timber two blunt saws and some nails in order to make up crates. They said it would be $30 each for the crates which we thought was a bargain after the greif we'd had crating the bikes for seafreight back in April and we were interested to see how long it would take 12 men with two hammers to do it. The solution they had was to nail 2 Pallets together with a couple of extra 4"x2" battens put the bike on, nail a square of battens round each wheel then make up a framework out of 2"x1" to enclose the bike. It was a bit rickety but they are the experts.... We used our straps as well to pull the bikes down (thanks to BVM in Stroud for those they've been invaluable) and hoped that the pilot made a smooth landing. Then there was a change of plan as they decided we needed to take the batteries right out which meant we also had to remove the Scottoilers, and the batteries were then nailed into seperate little squares alongside the bike. Another change of plan then, to remove the screen and mirrors which we'd suggested to start with and that was the first bike done. By this time it was midday and Paul & John went over to the Passenger Terminal to see about alternative flights/better prices while Adam kept a lookout on the packing. The guys cracked on with the second bike after a delivery scooter dropped off a takeaway Cantonese lunch, very good too, they had almost finished it when Paul & John returned with the news that there were huge queues; all the desks they had spoken to said it was really busy and there were definately no spare standby seats or cheaper options available, so at least we knew it had been a good move to reserve those seats on Friday. It was now late in the afternoon but after a discussion and a trip for more wood they decided to finish the last bike off today, so it should be a quick Police check on Monday morning for security clearance then on the midday flight out after shrink wrapping.

It was about 6pm when they were done and we took a taxi back into town; the car was well down to standard, nice driver but the horn was a brown wire which needed to be shorted out to hoot, every time he put the brakes on it was metal to metal and when we stopped there was a column of smoke rising from behind where the dash used to be! Still not as bad as the one we overtook on the way in whose nearside front wheel was falling off; he went over a bump and changed lanes by accident nearly taking out a Landcruiser minding it's own business in the middle lane. Our friend from Arteaga asked if we'd like to go to Salinas again tomorrow with the driver, but yes he did have a better car if we wanted to go that far. We said we'd think about it but decided if we went it would probably be on the bus. We'd been so long we had missed Wilson who'd finished his shift, as we were hoping to catch a band later, but on the way back round John was delighted at last to spot an entire family of 5 riding along on a CG125, now our new overloading record. However he is still intrigued by the family he spotted in Bolivia, near lake Titicaca, 5 of them sat next to a big picnic basket in the middle of a huge field with only a CG125 for company, but we could not give them the record as we did not see them actually on the move! After a visit to the local Internet shop for some emergency mails out to ensure we had funds on Monday to cover the freighting we had dinner in the Hotel restaurant which is really good value and excellent food, in order to gather our strength before Wilson arrived for the evening session. We also met up in the foyer with a couple John had encountered when he cashed a Mastercard ticket on Friday, she was the only one in the bank who spoke English and has a boyfriend from Sheffield. She'd said to John that after he had collected the cash ($100 in singles) from another building that she would leave a couple of moments before him for safety and that he should get straight into a taxi even though he only had 2 blocks to walk, again just being sensible.

Paul had decided to stay in with Cinecanal and rest but Adam & John were up for a night out and we loaded up into Wilson's mate Julio's pickup, 8 up with the wives. They had a couple of clubs in mind, the first was packed with a big queue on the pavement, so were the second and third but finally we got to Anubis which looked good and they had a band on later as well. Checking in you either have to leave a credit card on the desk or pay up front, which we did and got a little scorecard to hand over the bar which they knocked each drink off till you'd spent it all. The music was mixed Salsa and western stuff, the girls & boys danced really well, particularly Mary & Mariuzi who is a live wire, while Adam & John practised their downhill skiing technique! We just can't cut it with these natural dancers! The band came on Guitars, Sax & Keyboard and were really good covers of some western stuff, but as soon as they did some Mexican and Peruvian songs the crowd went mad and everyone sang along at the top of their voices and it went down a storm, the Guayaquil people do love a party! The band did a 45 minute set then packed up and it as back to disco, so we carried on dancing till the card ran dry and then decided to make a move.

However we were invited back to Julio & Mariuzi's place and while Julio was getting the pickup we noticed several houses and balconies nearby were all running parties, so there you go, this is the place to come for a noisy night out! Julio decided to save some fuel by driving us over the central reservation and got stuck on top of it, with much good natured hooting from other drivers and piss taking from the back seat drivers, John apologises to Aunty Pauline for us getting involved in such disreputable behaviour, we ought to know better now we are grown up responsible people. After an erratic ride back through town taking off over the humps; we also were told by the guys that red lights are optional after 11pm (due to the risk of holdups we think they were serious!?) it was through a massive steel gate and upstairs to the flat which is powered by an extension lead from next door. Julio got the music pumping, he likes AC/DC, Kiss, Sinnead O'Connor & Bob Marley, while Mariuzi whipped up a wonderful Kedgeree from nothing. It was really nice to meet another family and we had some great laughs with them, much good humoured piss taking again. Wilson offered to drive us back as Julio was now a little the worse for wear, on the way out one of the neighbours opened their door and rather than moaning about the noise asked if we wanted to join their party as well. We declined and made it back to the pickup, where another neighbour also hopped on, we asked where he wanted to be dropped but he said he'd just come along for the ride! So we finally made it back after a great evening only then realising it was 5 in the morning, lucky it was Sunday and maybe we would not make it to the beach after all.

Sunday 20.8.00 Guayaquil As expected we stayed in bed late, as it was the first day since the beach last Sunday we had not been trying to organise something, though even then we'd spent time talking to the boatmen about hiring a motor cruiser up to Panama. John & Paul went for a coffee while Adam came round from deep sleep, the cruel boys got the video out to catch him at his worst! We'd missed breakfast so we all went to the Continental Hotel restaurant for a light lunch and it really was very pleasant to not be rushing around. After lunch Paul explored the newly renovated waterfront area which has beautiful views over the Guayas and an art gallery while John & Adam sat in Iguana Park again, still amazed at how still these things can be before they burst into action. We dropped in the Internet Shop and got some personal messages sent off then went back for another rest and watched the early evening film while catching up with the paperwork and making sure we were all organised for Monday morning. We ate in again as the in house restaurant is good value and compared notes about what we were missing most to eat. Predictably John is pining for Cadbury's Milk chocolate, while Adam has been desperately missing ice cold Guinness, but all Paul wants is to buy a decent cabbage and take it straight home to cook! Well it takes all sorts! We watched Deep Impact on Cinecanal which was good fun and were asleep in good time looking forward to tying up the paperwork in the morning to get the bikes in the air later that day, and fly ourselves on Tuesday AM.

Link to next update: Week 8