The taxi driver drove through narrow streets littered with cups, paper, and bottles looking for my hotel. The buildings were covered in Graffiti. After twenty four hours of travel I was finally in Quito, Ecuador. I had chosen to stay in the old city because of the many heritage sites. Now I was having second thoughts. When he finally found the hotel the driver walked me to the door and the concierge, Carlos, helped me with my luggage. My room is on the second/third floor and has two large windows that overlook the plaza and the fountain. I soon discovered life is happening here. There are often lovers embracing, mothers or fathers spending time here with their toddler, men eating lunch, and musicians playing for the passerby. Motorcycles park under the large palm tree. You can ... read more

THE WASHING MACHINE Guanica, Puerto Rico Diving Day One SURPRISE!! This morning, my first day of diving in Guanica, Puerto Rico, I opened the door to the dive shop, and the guy on the other side looked a bit familiar. I took a second look, just as he also recognized me. What laughs we had. Curt, from my dive club in Washington, was there with his daughter Felicia. For one day of diving! The same day I was diving! Pretty amazing coincidence; more of that travel magic. We took a small transfer boat out to the anchored dive boat, San Juan Divers. It was about a twenty minute ride to the first dive site. The ocean swells were pretty intense. There were about ten divers and one dive master. Pedro carried two side anchored tanks so ... read more

June 5th INTRODUCING: SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO We took a taxi from the airport to Historic Old San Juan, yet another capital city. We booked our first two nights into the S. J. Suites Hotel. There were ups and downs to the hotel. The price was right and the location was wonderful. The air conditioner, however, was controlled by the manager which meant it was very cold at night. Michael finally fixed that. We were the only people on the fourth floor so he went into the hall and turned the AC off. What a relief. Since we didn’t want to spend our dwindling remaining time together on the computer, we stayed at S. J. Suites till Michael left for the airport. Once again I enjoyed sightseeing in the city with Michael. We stepped out the ... read more

HISTORIC SANTA DOMINGO Dominican Republic We decided to go to the Dominican Republic, on our way down to Puerto Rico, where Michael will be terminating his adventure in the Caribbean. We had two choices of airports in the Dominican Republic. We finally settled on flying into Santo Domingo, the capital city. Michael is very comfortable in big cities and likes to visit a country’s capital. I was happy to take advantage of his experience and broaden my travel skills. We got a hotel right on a busy expressway. It was a comfortable hotel and featured a very nice complimentary breakfast. At my instigation we took a taxi to the university area looking for a vegetarian restaurant…big mistake. The restaurant didn’t exist any longer and the taxi driver, trying to please us, took us to another restaurant ... read more

TURKS AND CAICOS Meeting Michael There are no inter-island flights in the Caribbean. In order to fly from one island to another you must fly back to the US. I had a layover in Miami and arrived in Provodenciales, Turks and Caicos at 9:30 p.m. I took a taxi, a van with six other people, to my hotel six miles away. It cost $43…I was astounded! The taxes on our hotel were as much as the fee for the room. Thank goodness Michael and I would be sharing expenses. Because of the expense of the taxi I met Michael at our hotel, The Caribbean Paradise Inn at Grace Bay. I was delighted to see him again. Our room had a balcony that overlooked the pool, but what was best about the hotel was the friendly accommodating ... read more