Day 272
Guayaquil, (pronounced ´Gwhy-kil´!) Ecuador, South America
Here we are..in Ecuador! Left Lima at 11.20am...(our friendly travel agent girl, Ada, who wé seem to have become friends with saw us off at the airport! Which was so nice...)and arrived here, to the hotel, after all the airport kerffuffle at 3pm. (One hour 30 min flight!)
Our contact picked us up..after we saw our names in lights on a bit of paper..so nice for it to be all organised....unsual for us..but to come here, it really does have to be part of a tour or package organised by a travel agent.
We wouldn´t like to be organising flights and tours ourselves here in South America with the language barriers! Also..it´s cheaper this way...the discount structure, to organise tours within the country is quite extraordinary. From home, i´d imagine people would be paying triple what we pay when organising tours on the spot, within the country! We´re doing the same with our other internal flights as well...and there are a few! South America is such a BIG COUNTRY!
And guess what??? All the Christmas trees are up!!! IN the hotel, airport etc..even here as i look up..there´s a TREE all decorated!!!!! So funny....when we were away on our Inca Trail we didn´t give much thought to the fact that xmas is coming up in just over 3 weeks! In fact, nor did anyone else!
Then..when we got back..all the trees in the hotel´s were up!! And glowing..glittery and twinkling...
And it´s the same here in Ecuador - the hotel, the shopping centres..the centre of town..everwhere (almost!) is Christmassy..so, there you go, it´s not only the western countries that get into all the glitz and glamour!
Wow...thinking about xmas..where will we be???
We think, Bueonos Aires! Doing the tango! haha
Here in Ecuador the currency is US dollars. We wondered why and found out the inflation rate went through the roof in 1999 and the govt opted to adopt the US dollar to stabilise the currency..and so, it´s all US dollar here. Easier for us to exchange and use anyway. We wondered whether it´d be Soles as in Peru or what it would be.
And we were happy to find out the US dollar is still weak against the Aussie dollar..with the Labour Govt in power we thought we´d see the exchange rate go down! IT did in fact swing about 7% but it has stabilised. We notice things like that when travelling, always looking at the current exchange rates!
We don´t go to the Galapagas until tomorrow...so for tonight, we´re just enjoying being in this gorgeous little proud place. 2.8 million people..but it seems small!!We´ve had our dinner on the Guayas river front...and had fish (pescardo) and rice (aroz)and 2 beers each (it´s hot here, 32´C at sunset and the beer went down well!!!)and it cost US$11! Cheap! And we were told it could be expensive...nah, they don´t know what they´re talking about!
We went to the plaza and joined in the ´party´...bought a tee shirt saying, ¨Guayaquil De Pie! Whatever that means! On the back it says, ...Se Lo Siente Y Se Love!
Who knows...gotta join in the fun, and the teeshirt was something i needed for when we go snorkelling and swimming on the islands..with the mana rays..hehe...bought for $3!
Can´t stay here long...we´ve kicked the Admin guy off his computer cos the computer in the Business Centre isn´t working so he said we could use his...so better get going!
Hope all is well there! Thanks for all your emails today...we love knowing how you´re all getting on!
And Lisyloos..hope you and David got back from Bali ok..sounds like you had a BALL! Give the pussies a big smooch for us! haha xxxx
