Well we just returned from a two-plus weeks tour of Ecuador. We began by meeting our oldest daughter, Kirsten, her boyfriend, Fred and our oldest granddaughter, Courtney in Guayaquil, a sea port city in southern Ecuador. All three flew to the Galapagos for four days while Jean and I explored Guayaquil. After they returned we all boarded a bus for Riobamba, located in central Ecuador, wanting to see the open market. Here we saw our first mountain people. They are all very short and all the men wear either one of those small felt hats and the women wear either the same type of hat or a pretty straw hat with a thin brim. We stayed overnight in Riobamba and then took the down bus to Alausi where we wanted to ride the famous mountain train. This is where things started to get adventuresome.
We were delayed in getting to Alausi because we had to wait in Riobamba for our laundry to get finished. It wasn’t done by 3:30 because the dryers weren’t working at the laundry shop so, after paying $10, we took our wet laundry with us. We arrived late in Alausi and the hotel we stayed in had the thinnest mattresses I’ve ever seen. The manager said to knock on her door in the morning and she would turn on the hot water. Next morning…. No manager in her room, i.e no hot water. So we go at 6:30 AM down to the train station to buy our tickets so we can take the early train because we have to catch the 2:30 PM bus to Quito, a six hour trip. Well crap!! The early tickets are sold out and the earliest train is, yep, 2:30 PM ! 
So, we really want to go so we wait. In the meantime we have to check out of our hotel room however, the manager (who now appears) says we can keep our luggage in her room until we return from the train ride. Two-thirty arrives and they have sold more tickets than seats available on the train! We are at the back of the line so….. no train ride and we’ve missed the bus. We go back to the hotel to get our luggage and ….. no manager! We wait for an hour and she shows up. She tells us we can catch the bus coming up from Guayaquil if we go up to the highway so here we are on the side of the road waiting for the busses to come by. Don’t get ahead of me now…. Every bus headed to Quito is full so we decide to catch a local bus to Riobamba then catch a bus at the terminal to Quito. Every bus is full going to
Riobamba and it is going to be dark pretty soon. Kirsten happened to flag down a guy in an SUV coming out of a gas station and talked him into giving us a ride to Riobamba for 20 bucks. We finally get to Riobamba and catch the bus to Quito where we arrive at the hotel at 11:00 PM. Now we have to be up early to catch our shuttle to Amazonia and Fred has to catch his flight back to California. So, the next morning Jean, Kirsten, Courtney and I meet our driver and head for a nice 4 days exploring the headwaters of the Amazon, in an area known as Amazonia. Two hours out of Quito we are almost at the top of the Andes, ready to cross over to the jungle when the road is closed by SNOW! Our driver said it is the first time he has ever driven in snow and the first time this road was ever closed due to snow. 
Darn global warming! So we have to back track two hours and take a southern route which ends up taking three extra hours. We had reservations at a jungle resort named Casa Suizo located on the Napo river and we had to be met by a river panga so they could transport us to the resort and the last one runs at 5PM. We arrived at our pick up point at 5 PM and just made it. We spent four very nice and interesting days at the resort. We took guided tours of the jungle every day with two guides, one who spoke your language and one who was indigenous. We trekked through the jungle, saw lots of wildlife and exotic plants. We were shown how the 
locals trap animals for food and how they use plants for medicine. The resort was all inclusive so we always returned for 3 meals a day served in a pool-side setting. I normally don’t go for organized setting such as this but I was quite impressed. You would be hard pressed to see and do what we did on your own. After four days we returned to Quito where Kirsten and Courtney caught their flight back to California. Quito is the capital of Ecuador and located right on the equator. We visited Mitad del Mundo which is “ the middle of the world”
, an area set aside to celebrate the line going around the middle of the world. The next few days were spent exploring Quito and bussing back home to the boat. We had a great time but, I’m still recovering from “bus butt”.Pics: Guayaquil, old woman in Riobamba, hats in Riobamba, woman in Riobamba,jungle monkey, view from our jungle resort, self explanitory
