A quick stop in Bahia and off to Cuenca we go!
08 August 2008 | Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
Heather
Our trip back to Ecuador took much longer than expected. The Sunday flight from Portland to Houston was going great until the captain announced (upon descent) that we would not be landing in Houston but instead detouring to Beaumont, TX as there were thunderstorms in Houston and we didn't have enough fuel to circle. By the time we left Beaumont with full tanks we knew we had missed our connecting flight to Ecuador. Upon arriving in Houston we found out we were among 1000s of other people who has missed flights due to the thunderstorms in the area. Forty-five minutes of waiting and we reached the front of the line at Customer Service and were handed a hotel voucher (sweet!) and first class tickets (sweeter!) for the evening flight the next day. Monday we headed back to the airport for our flight, only to see that it was 'delayed' until Tuesday morning due to volcanic ash in the area. Argh. We headed back to the Sheraton with another hotel voucher in hand and wondered if we would even get out on Tuesday morning as Tropical Storm Edouard was expected to make landfall on the Texas coast on Tuesday. Bright and early Tuesday we trekked to the airport wearing our same clothes from the last 2 days and were pleased to see a scheduled on time departure despite Edourad's impending landfall. We arrived in Guayaquil Tuesday night (along with our baggage amazingly), cleared customs and got a new 90 day visa stamp on our passport and then got a 5 hour bus back to Bahia de Caraquez. When all is said and done our anticipated 25 hour trip took 73 hours.
Luckily there were no big surprises when we got back on the boat. Because the boat was closed up and there is humidity in the air mold can be a big issue. The trick is to wipe everything (absolutely everything!) down with a mild bleach or vinegar solution before closing up the boat. We found a few areas that were missed and had begun to look like the beginnings of a petri dish experiment but nothing too disgusting.
After 3 days of being back on the boat we are again closing her up again. We head out tomorrow for Cuenca, Ecuador where we will do 2 weeks of Spanish classes. We will take the 5 hour bus to Guayaquil (again), stay the night in Guayaquil and then the next day take another 5 hour bus from Guayaquil to Cuenca. A little history on Cuenca - Cuenca was founded in 1557 and the city's history is well preserved, earning Cuenca the honor of being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Trust site. Cuenca is Ecuador's 3rd largest city (400,000 people) and is located in the Andes (about 8,2000 ft above sea level). More to come on Cuenca ...
(the picture above was taken from our boat in Bahia - colorful sunsets are rare here)