April 10, 2014 - Going Stateside

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Sorry there haven't been any blogs for a while. We took a trip back to the States to get our taxes done, go through everything we left at our son Joe's house and of course visit as many friends as we could.

It all started with a three and a half hour "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" through the Cajas National Park to get to Guayaquil for our flight to Miami. We were in a van with four other travelers and the driver. He makes this trip twice a day, so he doesn't waste any time.

Cuenca sits at 8,500 feet elevation in the Andes Mountains and Guayaquil is at sea level, but you have to go up to 13,000 feet in the park before you descend down to the coast.

We left at five PM, so by the time we really got up into the park it was dark, raining and foggy. But that does not deter the driver. He speeds all the time, passes over double yellow lines and on curves. By the way most of the time it is only a two lane road, but sometimes there are three lanes and the middle lane is up for grabs regardless of where the yellow lines are.

We were the first ones to be dropped off, right at the airport at about 8 PM. That's right, he cut 30 minutes off the trip even in bad weather. So we waited around the airport until our flight left at 11:50 PM. It was a five and a half hour flight to Miami, the we caught a puddle jumper (only 50 passengers) to Nashville, arriving about 9 AM on the 11th. We got our phone and IPad reactivated and began our shopping/travelling.

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