Wednesday 16th November 2011

¡Adios Ecuador, hola Guatemala! Yesterday was my last day in Quito, and it dawned with the snow-capped volcanoes visible – something that has not been the case often during my two-week stay. Cayambe was particularly spectacular, but Antisana was also visible, although Cotopaxi was almost hidden in the morning rush-hour smog.

I had to walk out to the main street, Eloy Alfaro, complete with my heavy rucksack as no telephone taxis seemed to be available, but it was not long before I found a normal taxi on the street, and I headed to Gleny’s office, at the Fundación Cimas, where I suddenly found myself playing the role of official group photographer, something I am not especially experienced in…but the pictures turned out well!

From there I headed to the airport, this time leaving PLENTY of time to spare, following my Galápagos experience – and just as well, as the traffic was heavy, and the entrance to the airport was clogged up with fans arriving for the Ecuador – Peru football match that was due to take place that afternoon (Ecuador beat their arch-rivals Peru 2 – 0). This time, everything went smoothly in the airport, and I boarded my TACA flight without trouble. The first leg of the journey took me down, parallel with the “Avenue of Volcanoes”, which were partly showing through the cloud, to Guayaquil, where I had a 45-minute stopover before flying on to San José, Costa Rica, where we landed in torrential rain!

Then, having transferred to the connecting flight to Guatemala City, and my rucksack having been well and truly soaked while being transferred between the planes (!), I flew on, eventually arriving in Guate at 19.15. And so ended my wonderful two weeks in Ecuador. Once again my thanks to all my old friends for looking after me so kindly, and to my new friends for being such great travelling companions. I must say that, despite the massive growth in population that has taken place in the 28 years since I lived there, and despite the political chaos that has sometimes reigned in the intervening years, I see huge progress in Ecuador in many respects. I can only hope that the current populist government does not blow it all by squandering the country’s wealth, raiding the social security coffers to buy short-term approval, endangering democracy by attacking the freedom of the press, and other such activities. Time will tell.