Tuesday, September 18th. Santiago- Guyaquil.
A slow, quiet day – we lounged around until 9:30 before going for breakfast. We
figured everyone else would be long gone, but surprise! We were all there!
Packing up was challenging – stuff seems to multiply and of course we had a few
bottles of wine to squeeze in. Let’s hope those survive the trip. We said
goodbye to Ruth, who will get her passport on Thursday or Friday and then fly
to Guayaquil to meet us Saturday. Hernan saw us through the formalities at the
airport, and has promised to make sure Ruth is OK and gets what she needs. The
flight was longer than we had expected but the LAN aircraft was extremely
comfortable (are you paying attention AIR CANADA?) and most of us had empty
seats in our rows. We were still tired when we got to Guayaquil and through the
numerous formalities of customs and immigration. Our local representative,
Mabell, met us and carried us off to the Oro Verde, a nice hotel, but after the
Plaza El Bosque suites, a little confining.
