(Humor?) Trip to Ecuador & Peru

[TBoneTX 45,469]

T.'s (moi's) 8-day trip to Ecuador (Aug. 9-16, 2009) was a borderline disaster, si man.

It started propitiously -- T.'s two suitcases were 50 and 50.5 pounds. Couldn't have come closer, no man! One contained T.'s stuff; the other contained stuff for Cristina, who was already in Ecuador as of July 19. However:

1. The 5.5-hour flight from Houston to Quito featured two constantly screaming googies in the row behind, & a sweet, unaccompanied, hyperactive, trilingual, completely unoccupied 8-year-old girl in the seat NEXT to T. Four hours in, T. went to the stewardi (stewardess, pl.) and said (verbatim), "PLEASE kill me NOW!"

2. The TSA held T.'s primary suitcase for "extra inspection," & it missed T.'s flight. Luckily, T. & C. were staying in Quito another day, so T. went back to the airport to snatch it 24 hours later. However, see #3.

3. Suitcaselessly, T. spent a 12-hour Sunday having to be 100% social amongst C.'s approximately 5,982,701 relatives in Quito & four cities north... in imaginably fragrant airplane clothes-still-on-back, stink man.

4. Flew south to Loja on Mon.; Ecuadorian airline efficiently put a plastic lock on T.'s suitcase, and T. had no scissors with which to slice it open. This was (so far) the unkindest cut of all, snip man.

5. Taxi trip to Peru (due south through La Balsa, Ecuador to Namballe, Peru) was up & down hairpin turns on 1.5-lane-wide, mudslide-inflicted, quagmirish mountain road for 10 hours, with terrified wife's clawprints permanently adorning T.'s forearms, ouch man.

6. Brand-new hotel in Peru had no hot water upon 3 askings, then no water at all thereafter. Hotel owner went out back with a can of propane and sign-languaged that it was fixed. Water thereafter vacillated between scalding and polar, multiple times during same shower, schizo man.

7. Only open restaurant in worthless, fifth-world-country Peruvian hamlet (with a turkey walking down Main Street, and whose primary industry seemed to be bootlegging far-cheaper Ecuadorian gasoline) served us "carne de res," which was supposed to be beef but was really BURRO. "GAWWWWlee, Wil-burrrrr(o)!"

8. Terrified wife awakened at 5:40 a.m. to announce that it had rained again, and that we had better hit the re-muddied road early. Arrived at Peruvian immigration promptly at 8 a.m. (over a road obviously constructed as recently as 1932 by the automotive tire/4-wheel-alignment industry and maintained by them, and narrowly avoiding a convoy of cows & a gaggle of chickens), only to learn that the immigration "officer" had decided to sleep in, snore man. Had to track him down at his house (through mud & cowpies, serving as a juicy breakfast for mosquitoes, & dodging roosters) to awaken him and get the "gringo exit stamp" from his completely dried-up inkpad. Left for Ecuador after 9 a.m.

9. After 11-hour drive back up Quagmire Way (including two near-head-on collisions with convoys of cows) to C.'s hometown of Gualaquiza, the newest hotel there (prequalified thoroughly by C.) had NO hot water, had NOT finished LOUD construction (began at 7 a.m. Monday), had NO shelves or hooks anywhere in room or bathroom, and was semi-infested with hungry mosquitoes that were delighted to feast on an all-day buffet of Gringo. A day later, it still had no hot water, and Mama C. frantically prepared a spare room in her house for our imminently emergent advent.

10. Due to no sleep, constant rain & cold (it was winter's near-end), icy showers, & hyperactive nieces/nephew, C. was getting sick (& claimed that it was the "porcina" -- Puerco Flu). Turned out to be severe allergies, sneeze man. Weather then turned massively hot, with of course no air conditioning anywhere in town, & voraciously ravenous mosquitoes that continued to express (by repeated example) their delight in gorging on Gringo du jour al fresco.

11. No one in C.'s town (a casual place at best, & 99.44% dysfunctional during Gualaquiza Independence Festival week) could be trusted to provide any accurate answers or information about anything whatsoever, which led us on several and varied wild-rooster chases.

12. The dominant populations of Ecuador -- dogs & roosters -- respectively woofed & crowed, all constantly. One rooster began at midnight; others took up his slack at 3 a.m.; and all several dozen chorused together, usually at 5:15 a.m. until well after daybreak. The guiltiest ####### then had the audacity to parade himself outside C.'s parents' house in broad daylight (just within view of blur-focused eyes, yet out of reach of wring-necking).

13. Three-hour taxi trip to Loja (for flight back to Quito) took an extra 2 hours because of rockslide-removal stoppages. Much commerce was conducted with the enterprising youngsters who were magically on site at the stoppages in order to sell baggies of oversalted peanuts & popcorn and then (for desalination) bottles of water.

14. Ecuadorian airline personnel tried to impose a "gringo exit tax" on T. at the Loja airport until C. intervened to convince them that the venue was inappropriate and that T. would be nailed quite well at the Quito airport.

15. An extremely energetic & vocal rooster is on active assignment in DOWNTOWN Quito. He has very successfully trained the woofing dogs in call-and-response.

16. Quito airport security confiscated two statuettes (being hand-carried by T., to avoid breakage) that turned out to be pull-apart models with knives inside. That was another $30 down the tubes; welcome to leaving Ecuador, si man.

17. Continental Airlines had NO record of T.'s online check-in (done specially at o'dark-thirty the morning before) and GOOD seat choice; T. had to sit on hot/bright side of plane (windowshade far too hot to lean against or touch) and got zero sleep. The 8-year-old was nowhere to be seen, but the stewardess who had failed to shoot T. was there, and she was again derelict in her euthanasic duty.

18. On first exhausted night back at home, T. awoke at 4:45 a.m. due to mosquito-bite itchings. T. applied lotion while under curious inspection from cat, who then projectile-barfed on the carpet. Bites are still itching like a ####### as the remaining cat-puke coalesces.

Good news was that the Houston Immigration/Customs Puercos did NOT give T. any trouble upon T.'s re-entry (a first, search man), and the remote-parking shuttle pulled up just as T. exited the Houston airport, leave man.

Overall, a completely restful & massively groovy trip, si man? C. is still down there & will return on Sept. 12.

T. (who, si man, if he ever uncorks a genie, will immediately wish to shoot a BILLION roosters)

[Ban Hammer 13,395]

not much of a vacation, unless you're a masochist.

[William33 110]

Moved at the request of the OP.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Hehehehe, oooh what a travelogue! You poor man - I think you need a holiday to recover from your holiday.

[HAL 9000 96]

Pobrecito.

[NatPatBen 3]

Re #3, I had the airline lose/delay my checked luggage when I went to Boston. After wearing those same clothes for the two days it took to get it, I learned to pack some of my underwear in the carry-on.

After an airline temporarily lost my luggage when I went to Hawaii, I learned to not only carry extra underwear, but at least one outfit in the carry-on.

During my last 3 trips to Jamaica, I didn't check any luggage. It was very nice to travel with only a carry-on bag, even if it meant repeating outfits. Whenever possible, that's my new way to travel. They can't lose it if it's in my hand!

[TBoneTX 45,469]

Whenever possible, that's my new way to travel.

Let's go even one better... traveling nude, si man! No clothing to lose or even to carry on, and going through TSA's X-ray machines becomes a snap, si man! And, K., now that you are a citizenette, the word here for "vacation" is "vacation," not "holiday," si man, eh.

Speaking of holidays/vacations, C. phoned last night to report that she was in partying a karaoke bar in Guayaquil with her diminutive girlfriends and some former co-workers. I replied that there were ants (but no roosters) in a kitchen cabinet here at the casa, si man.

Edited August 23, 2009 by TBoneTX

[TBoneTX 45,469]

C. (still in Ecuador) reports that our mosquito-bites will continue to itch for a MONTH. Ow, man. I told her that I have since been bitten by a couple of Americano mosquitos, and that the latter were wimpy and that there is no comparison. She said, "Don't ever accuse me of being from a third-world country again." I said, "Si, man -- Ecuador has first-world mosquitos!" She said, "Shaddap!" I said, "Shaddap!"

If we reduce the above to writing, we can include it in our Removal-of-Conditions package, si man.