Saturday Evening, Jan 15/11

Ola!

We have a lovely dinner at an upstairs, outdoor restaurant. Just a perfect ambience, Spanish music, good food, good company and temperature about 60F, but they had the oil burner heaters on the balcony.

Now my buddies are at Macao Casino, spending the money they didn’t spend at the market. My philosophy is that I can buy another alpaca scarf rather than put $5 in a machine that I just press a button. Not my bag. So I walked home, it was8:10 p.m., dark and lots of action on the street, music and people greeting their friends. It is Saturday night in Ecuador. Ola! And Ole!

It has been perfectly safe to walk around, the only thing is that I do not have perfect directions or address of the hostel but I am good at finding my way around, after making wrong turns (didn’t tonight).

At the market I bought a beautiful ethnic table cloth plus table runner for $20, an alpaca scarf for $4, and a cotton knit top for $8. I am happy with these buys. I looked at their silver but it is not as nice as Mexican and really expensive compared to what I paid to my friend Beach David, in Mexico! Barbara says we are going to a town where all they sell is jewelry so I am saving my money for that experience.

Tomorrow, we are going to the Equator, I don’t know what it is called as Barbara throws out these Mexican names which I have no context to. I realize that I must see it in writing, and preferably on a map (which, by the way, is impossible to find either on internet or here in Ecuador, believe me, Ecuador is a well kept secret). However, this is a must see experience in Ecuador. Another long bus ride.

So that is Sunday.

Monday we head to Baja, where we will overnight. The following day it is to Barbara’s place at Manta; I can hardly wait for a few days on the beach and watching the surf of the Pacific Ocean.

I am giving this update because after tomorrow night I may not have another chance to get wireless for some time. I am thrilled that I have been lucky so far.

But friends, remember that Miami is cheap – I couldn’t believe that the Miami airport would charge for wireless access!!!!!

pictures to follow later as I still need to master uploading them to my laptop