In which we’re almost never heard from again

23 August 2006

Every morning on the boat, Suzy and I would wake at 6.30am to stumble around getting dressed in our cabin before the bell rang for breakfast at 7am. Quite often I would be awake a few moments before the alarm on my mobile started beeping on the mattress beside me. On our last morning, I woke earlier than usual and was aware of people walking about outside the cabin.

Suddenly an alarm on the boat went off, followed by the bell ringing. Huh? What the? But it’s not even … Douglas came past and called “Dolphins!” through the crack in our doorway. We piled blearily out of the cabin and stood outside in our jammies. A couple of dolphins were keeping us company in the water and I could see their fins here and there, close to the boat. Suzy also saw one right below us in the water.

After getting dressed and having our breakfast, we sailed around Daphne Island, which is shut to the public. Though the sides of the island are so steep, I’m not entirely sure how you’d get onto it even if it were open! We were on the lookout for red-footed boobies, but unfortunately none made an appearance. Herons, blue-footed boobies and all the usual suspects were in evidence, though.

The circuit of the island complete, Suzy and I went to finish packing in our cabin. Much more of an ordeal than usual, trying to pack everything back into our rucksacks on our bunks, while also staggering about as the boat bounced over the waves. Virgy also paid us a visit to steal more of my aftersun lotion and to try and stop us packing.

The whole group convened on deck for photos and we soon discovered that Virgy shouldn’t give up his day job as chef to become a photographer. I’d handed him my camera unintentionally zoomed in and so when I came to check the result, it was a good photo of just a small number of us. After the whole stack of our cameras, including Suzy’s, had been gone through, I zoomed back out for him and the group gathered again in a slightly different configuration, with Antonio plonking himself down in the middle of the front row and linking arms with me and Suzy.

Before long we had reached Baltra and it was time to leave. There was much hugging and kissing all round, with Douglas indicating firmly in Spanish that Sarita shouldn’t go, she should stay on the boat. I had to disappoint him and boarded the panga one last time. Off we sailed, waving to the crew left on board, as Douglas called from the deck, “Ciao, Sarita! Ciao, Sarita!”

Enriqué escorted us to Baltra airport, where we checked in and sat and waited in the big beach hut that was the terminal. I saw Enriqué welcoming his next group and sat on my bench feeling very smug, tanned, accustomed to the heat and able to spot a frigate bird at 50 paces.

I did a bit more shopping at the kiosks outside the terminal and exchanged smiles with the woman from whom I’d bought postcards a week ago. I bought some earrings from a very jolly, helpful man, who stamped my passport with a Galapagos stamp to prove I’d been there too, not just to Ecuador!

After the sitting, shopping and sitting once more, Enriqué came to say goodbye to us all – although Suzy and I were clearly the favourites, being the only ones to receive kisses. It seems to pay to be young women on a trip like this ;-)

Our plane was a smart thing and I had a window seat, which meant I was able to get a few shots as we left the island and then as we flew over Ecuador. The flight didn’t land at Guayaquil this time, so the journey time was a bit shorter. We were given meat and potato slices for lunch, which was a little blah, but the bread roll with butter, fairy cake and little white chocolate bar with crispy bits were wonderful, along with a cup of Coke. I guess I’d missed sugar.

We were soon back to Quito, where Sofia took us all back to our hotel and we were then free to do our own thing. In my diary it says that Suzy and I “threw our crap across our beds and fannied about a bit before I had a shower”. I think that about covers it. Except for the moment when Suzy discovered that lying on her bed with her rucksack between her and the mirror, she could make it look in her reflection as though she was inside her rucksack.

After I was out of the shower Suzy announced that she was hungry, bringing my attention to my own rumbling stomach. We headed out to find the Italian restaurant we had picked out on our map. It took some finding … and was shut. Meanwhile my leg had fired up it’s “horrible pain for no reason” trick, so I wasn’t up for too much aimless wandering to find another feeding hole.

We soon found a nice quiet little place called “Il Pizzaiolo”. An Indian guy with a metal bar through his earlobe served us, while a film with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron was showing on the TV on the counter. The sound was turned down, so all the fighting, making up and dogs was a bit confusing. (Seems to have been “Sweet November”)

We ordered a starter to keep us going while we waited for our canneloni. It was bruschetta topped with tomato and herbs and was so yummy that we decided that we would come back the next night. Suzy asked Mr Indian to mark the restaurant on our map so we could avoid wandering the streets with rumbling stomachs again.

After yummy canneloni and ~~lines~~ glasses of coke, we headed off to find an internet café. Just as we were stepping over its threshold, the Welsh members of our tour group went past in a taxi, with Glenys hanging out of the window, shouting at us.

We checked our mail and made sure the world was still out there beyond Quito and then decided that a taxi back to the hotel wouldn’t be a bad idea. Turns out, it was.

It wasn’t difficult to hail a cab, as white tourists stand out a mile on the streets of Quito and you can’t walk down the street without hearing taxis honking at you, as if to say, “Are you lost? Let me take you somewhere!” It was perhaps a sign that the taxi we hailed was not one that had honked at us in such a fashion. In any case, the vehicle stopped and we climbed into the back seat, my legs and I relieved to be sitting once more. Suzy gave the driver the name of our hotel. He’d never heard of it. I felt this did not bode well. Our hotel was Fuente de Piedra II, so really he had two chances to have heard that name in the city, but no, he’d no clue where that hotel was. Or, it seemed, where he himself was at that moment. Nonetheless, he started driving, making a right turn where Suzy was praying he would turn left. Suddenly we were going through streets we’d never seen before.

A mobile phone rang in the back seat and Suzy picked it up and handed it to the driver. He answered it and had a conversation with the phone’s owner, who had called to find its whereabouts. There was the joyous moment on our journey when the driver dropped the phone into the passenger’s footwell and bent down to retrieve it while still driving along the road.

Rightly coming to the conclusion that he didn’t know where he was going, our taxi driver pulled over. He looked at our map, Suzy pointed, said things, he looked some more and then set off again. The map consultation didn’t seem to have helped though and eventually Suzy saw something she recognised and we baled out. We walked back to our hotel from there, nearly as far as we would have walked without the taxi driver’s “help”.

Prices are much lower in Quito. It cost us just $2 for a fright.

Click on the merry band of travellers for just a few pics from our last day on the boat

Posted in: friends, photos, travels

Comments

One Response to “In which we’re almost never heard from again”

Market day – part 1 : dreamdust
14th September 2011 @ 12:37 pm

[...] So … it really is about time I told you all about our penultimate day in Ecuador. This is the story of the day after we made the mistake of thinking a taxi driver would know where he was going. [...]