Equador Trip Scot Walker   © Copyright 2026 by Scot Walker

Photo by Diego F. Parra at Pexels

DECEMBER. 2006

December 3 Sunday. ON THE WAY TO ECUADOR. I got up at 4:30; I’ll be leaving for Dulles for my trip to Ecuador soon. I got to the airport and went through security in about 15-minutes, but they did confiscate my bottle of mosquito repellant—duh, like that’s going to kill someone. I sat in Continental 8-A and carried on my big bag, afraid that they were going to check it. Subsequently I learned that they stowed them at the front of the plane and offloaded them as soon as we landed. I could have gone for that if I had known. I arrived at Houston and had about 4 and a half hours to kill at the airport. I ate and window shopped. Then I went to the boarding gate and met Jeff and Susan Day—they will be joining the tour, as well. I sat in Continental E-3 on the aisle and ate another meal. Upon arrival in Quito, our guides Paul and Paullina met Jeff, Susan and I at the airport but they had no identification. Susan asked to see something which a very wise thing was to do. We got to the Rena Isabel Hotel at about 11:00. My new roommate (Jeff, Alias Fritz) was asleep but greeted me. I didn’t sleep well at all—Fritz snored most of the evening and the trucks loaded with dancing drinking teenagers were driving up and down the central streets—banging out music in celebration of Fiesta Quito (their Independence Day).

December 4, Monday. QUITO Fritz and I got up at about 6:00 when the sun rose and chatted; he’s an old guy, hillbilly, very nice. I don’t see any problems, but we will be sharing a cabin on a small ship and an Amazon hut. That bothers me and I didn’t sleep well. We went to breakfast and met more of our group. Paul and Paulina then took us on a bus tour of the city. One of our members is blind; this will be an interesting trip. We drove through morning rush hour—into Old Town, the center of the city and visited Independence Square and watched the children and soldiers. One of the soldiers had a military sword hanging from his side. I bought a marble elephant at a gift shop—mass produced, overly priced, but it’s a souvenir from Quito. I bought Tri the first of his T-shirts. We walked in between some of the old buildings but all in all I was not impressed with Quito. Then we went into the Golden Church—a building in Baroque design that is totally covered in gold leaf—it is extraordinary—and says so much about the Catholic church that they dared rob the people of all their god’s gold so they could build a monument to their 3 Christian gods. Then we went outside and watched a local parade that celebrated Independence Day. It was small town caliber at best—boring kids marching up the street, no organization, no planning—it was totally rag-tag. The only highlight was a group of guys who danced their way along the parade route and into the streets—they, at least, had some soul and life to them and reminded me of the joyous days I’ve had in Rio. Then we went to Ecuador’s “two equators”. Sadly, no one in my group mentioned that there are not two equators; even though everyone knows that the equator is an imaginary line that goes around tour entire planet and “it” is not a dot. The first “dot” was at the Quechua Inti Nan Museum. Inti Nan is Quechuan for “path of the sun.” We visited there for an extremely long time, and it was a bored until we eventually had our home-hosted lunch here. The host had to lead everyone in prayer—I found this to be over-the-top. I’ve always found these awkward and felt sorry for the locals who have to provide the service, but they do get paid for their time and trouble and that’s a good thing. I think the organizers of future Grand Circle/Overseas Adventure Tour need to consider changing formats; they are so identical that it’s comical. We looked at a shrunken head, several exhibits, and replicas of local houses, etc. Then we stood on the “newly discovered equator”, which they took so much pride in as if the gods themselves had placed a dot in their back yard, and everyone took pictures and I hoped at least one person in my group realized the inanity of that! But the Ecuadorian natives seem to think the equator is a dot. They also did the famous water experiment to “prove that water north of the equator goes down a train clockwise whereas water a few yards away (south of the equator) goes down counterclockwise. It’s a great way to make money I guess, and later Jeff Day reminded the group of the fallacies of so many people. But Jeff’s remark made me glad that there was at least one outspoken intelligent person with me. Next, we went to the big monument on their demarcation of the “Equator”—and yep! It has a huge monument. I bought a certificate stating that I had been there and I took a few pictures—and had Paul take more of me—standing on the south and north of the line. I am hoping to meet up with my friend tonight, but we have a group dinner at 7:00. I’ll wait to see what happens. We got back to the hotel at 5:00 and my friend didn’t call (I had just met him online a few days ago) so I showered, repacked for tomorrow’s trip to the Amazon, and then Fritz and I went to our first group meeting. We all had to go around the room and introduce ourselves. Everyone was impressed that there was an author as part of the tour. Then we went to dinner, which was almost a disaster. Paulina had asked us what we wanted when we were at the equator but most of the people were too tired to remember. Fritz and I went up to our room. I repacked for the Amazon and left a huge suitcase of my Quito and Galapagos stuff in the hotel because we would return here for a night before heading off to the place I’ve dreamt of for years: the Galapagos Islands. I slept a little better, but the bands kept playing and I still worried about sharing a small cabin with someone I didn’t know. Fritz didn’t snore much at all, however, but the parade got so loud I dragged my mattress into the sitting room, took out a light bulb in the bathroom and turned on the fan to make some white noise. I slept well until sunrise at 6:00 the next morning.

December 5, Tuesday. Sinamune Foundation Dancers, Coca Yachana Lodge Fritz and I got up at about 6:00 when the sun rose and cleaned up; then we went down to breakfast. Afterwards, we boarded a bus and were driven to the Sinamune Foundation, but I cut my finger on the bus trying to open the window and it bled a lot. Someone offered me a Band-Aid and that staunched the flow—oh the joy of traveling in a group. At the Sinamune Foundation, the students performed a choreographed orchestral work that was awesome; there was one downs syndrome boy who danced like a champion—and two downs syndrome girls were good, as well. I gave $10 donation and bought another T-shirt for Tri. Then we raced down to the airport for our early morning flight to Coca and the Amazon jungle. I asked a few people for Band-Aids and Don had one. I sat in seat 10-A on the plane; the flight lasted 45 minutes, but they served everyone on the plane a drink and a small breakfast: what amazing airline! We arrived in Coca, a small border town, and literally hopped on a local bus. We had to put our feet into the stirrups and hoist ourselves up—that meant watching my head as well as my shoulder bag, but we all did it without any problems. Getting down was even trickier—we couldn’t see where the stirrup was. We went to the unisex bathroom – complete with 3 urinals and 3 stalls and Fritz peed in a stall; he grossed out Laura. Then we got our feet measured for boots—I ended up with size 9—yellow boots and I’m so glad they lent them to us. My leather boots would have been destroyed. We then got into a motorized covered canoe (with heavy yellow rain jackets) in a light rain and headed down the Napa River to the Yachana Lodge and I was given my own cabin—HURRAY because Fritz is a frequent traveler and gets single accommodations when not in major city. (UPDATE: I kept in touch with Fritz until he died—he was a fantastic “character”). Paulina is going to get such a tip! My cabin was awesome—two beds with mosquito netting, a private bathroom, and a private porch with hammock, but there were no chairs or desks in the room—that was distinctly disadvantageous. Ruth Coy was very ill and didn’t join us much for the next few days; her husband, Don, told us that she had been having heart palpations since they left Miami. We ate a very good lunch and then I took a siesta of about 70 minutes or so. Next, we went for our first jungle walk—a grueling 2-and-a-half-hour hike through the rain forest. Lee, the blind man walked in front of me and kept up with the group, so there was no turning back for any of the rest of us: He is amazing. We saw the various types of tree roots: buttress, delta, pancake, etc. and had a briefing—and an explanation of the lodge which is a reserve and rescue station for animals being confiscated that were intended to have been sold on the black market—this society also took in those animals that had been “adopted” by various individuals who subsequently found them impossible to handle and manage. Ultimately, the goal here is to try to reintroduce the animals into the wild. I’m sure there is some government spending here that OAT didn’t tell us about. Then we walked to the tables and had dinner and the meals here are very good. That evening half of our group went for a nighttime jungle excursion. I figured that since the night was dry, it was the best time to go, so I did. It was scary at first, being in a canoe in the dark, but I was okay. We stopped at a small landing, climbed up a hill and entered another part of the sanctuary where we boarded canoes and explored the lake, listening to the sound of hundreds of frogs and watching the eyes of the glow worms. I liked the glowing eyes the best We also saw a rat-like animal, called a paca, which had just been acquired on the black market. A couple had purchased it as a pet but realized (with government restrictions) that it was too big for them to keep. Ruben petted it and it seemed quite content but soon it will revert to nature. I wonder what that’s like. I wonder how animals feel about that. I got back to the cabin at 9:15, disappointed that I couldn’t see any stars—it’s a full moon and that outshines everything. I fell asleep right away—nearly as soon as I hit the bed at 10:00.

December 6, Wednesday. I slept well but heard many animal and insect sounds in the jungle. I woke up at 6:05. About half of the group got up early in the rain to go bird watching. I didn’t feel like trekking again so I skipped it (subsequently I learned that they watched from the dining room; I could have done that.) I ate breakfast and then we started off for another of our mud walks with our local guide, naturalist, Ruben. This time, Lee turned back and I’m glad he did; it was a rough walk. We walked through deep mud for what felt like miles for about 3 hours. I didn’t even take my binoculars or camera—just too wet and raining. Finally, after what seemed like hours, we got to the tallest tree in the forest, which was about 120 feet tall. The company had built a scaffold around it with about 100 stairs. Our group was split in two and we climbed. I was in the first group—and the view was amazing—I just wished I had brought my camera. We saw the canopy of the forest which seemed to spread out forever and we saw a multitude of birds including macaws. Then my group went to the ground level and Milton and a native created woven baskets from the forest. I had seen it before, however, in a different section of the great Amazon rain forest (in Brazil). Then we then walked back to the cabin to clean up, stopping to see the caged lions and monkeys that the reserve had recently acquired. After lunch, I finished reading a Bend in the Road by Alexander Sparks—he’s not a good writer but he tells a hell of a story! Then Fritz and I paddle a canoe downstream, and he said I could sit in the front to steer and help paddle but when I turned around, I realized he was steering and I was doing all the paddling—clever trick—clever man—he began my friend instantly. I had decided not to go on the afternoon walk when I heard Fritz laughing about our trip and decided it was better to save face, so I went back to the afternoon hike. This time we went back to the same lake in the fenced-in reserve we’d visited the night before. Ruben took Lee and Barbara on a private excursion with half the group canoeing. Paulina led my half of the group along the narrow path that circled the lake. At one point I heard a crashing sound and knew a tree was falling and yelled at Richard, who was in front of me, to move. He ran to safety as Paulina was yelling for us to run to her. The tree fell at a different angle just outside the reserve and no one was hurt. Then we switched over and my group went for a canoe ride around the lake and climbed the bird watching tower—Ruben had his telescope and Susan and I watched two birds fucking on the island along with toucans and macaws We then canoed around the lake in the daylight—it was very different from last night. Today, in the jungle, we learned that TEXACO was responsible for the deaths of 36,000 Ecuadorians in TEXACO’S attempt to deforest a huge section of the country and drill for oil—therefore the nation does not like TEXACO anymore. Then we went back to the lodge, cleaned up and had dinner. That evening, as some of the group headed off on the evening tour, I chatted with Lee for an hour or so. He’s an alcoholic and his son disappeared when his son was 14. One minute he was there, the next minute gone! We both knew he meant his son was kidnapped—and that is heartbreaking. Later that evening, I repacked for my upcoming flight and tossed a lot of nasty clothes into the garbage—I deliberated about leaving my raincoat but took it and regretted it later—it was really nasty. I fell asleep around 10:00.

December 7, Thursday. I woke up at 6:00 with the sun and had breakfast. After breakfast, we headed in the big canoe toward the schoolhouse. After spending 30 minutes or so wandering through a field, identifying various plants, we reached the school. The school was a one-room school, and the kids were coerced into going there because the school provided free breakfast and lunch. The kids ranged in age from 3 to 12. The children were in grades preschool through 6^th grade. They put on a show for us and we sang jingle bells for them. We left the school and spent 15 minutes or so walking through the “farm” identifying plants that did not need to be identified—it’s getting to be boring now. Then we visited an Amazon family—they had a big house and there were nine children living there. We all introduced ourselves and the father looked me in the eyes with more admiration than I’ve seen in my entire life—when I mentioned that I was a poet. He seemed to want to catch some of my spirit! It was very moving. Then we had a blow gun demonstration—I was horrible. Then we went back to the lodge and ate lunch. I showered and took a siesta. When I woke up from my nap. we took another short canoe ride into the jungle and had a BBQ. Dave prepared our meal—roasted beetle larva, fish, maniac, plantains, etc. Mike, Laura’s husband, was the only one of us who refused to eat. I ate something of everything. Then we headed down to the healer—a young boy, 24 years old, who cast out the bad energy of the husband-wife team of Sue and Jeff, then Dave and then Paulina. It was a little bit too much for me even though I had witnessed voodoo demonstrations in Brazil and even joined a worship service at the Temple of the monkey god in New Delhi. We ate dinner and I talked to Lee again in the lobby for an hour or so; I like him a lot. I cleaned up, repacked again—it seems a never-ending process but I’ve done this for years and found it so easy when I land in a new city or port or country and know where all things I need are at my fingertips. I read more of Enemy at the Gates—the story of the fall of Stalingrad.

December 8, Friday we leave Coca. I woke up at 6:00 and ate breakfast at 7:00; we had eggs and fruit—very nice. I put my bag out at 8:00. We took the big canoe back to Coca and had plenty of time there, so we went out shopping and exploring. We were each given $1.00 to spend and I bought ice cream, water, empanada, and 3 band aids. I also spent $4.00 to buy a new pair of sandals. We then went back to the airport and flew to Quito sitting in seat 05-D on an ICARA flight. Of course, we had another meal on the 45-minute plane ride. Our guide. Our guide picked us up at the airport and we went off to see the central market. I left the group and wandered around taking pictures—they bought flowers for Ruth, and I bought plantain chips for me ($1.00). I finally had some free time in Quito, so I checked my emails and called my new Facebook friend, Paul, from the hotel—I had trouble getting through so I sent him an email. Then I went for a walk, but it started to rain and I returned to the hotel and asked the hotel doorman where I could buy an umbrella—he lent me one. How sweet. I called Tri (at $.12 a minute) but when I finished, I walked into the glass door—silly me. I was okay, just a little shaken up and feeling stupid. I continued my walk but took a photo of the building near the hotel—so that I could compare it to the scenery on my way back if I got turned around. I actually did think I was turned around when I came back and pulled out my camera to check—I wish I had thought of that when I was in New Zealand, I would have saved a lot of frustration as I ended up wandering around the town for over an hour –without writing down the name of my hotel or even remembering where it was even though I looked at my map over and over—until finally I noticed these words on the map YOU ARE HERE (with a big arrow pointing to my hotel) talk about being observant!!!!. On the way back to the hotel, I bought an umbrella for $2.00. Then I continued my walk and stopped off to buy frozen yogurt. Altogether, I walked about a mile or so—got tired and went back to the room. Fritz and I worked out in the exercise room for about an hour, he took a sauna and I worked on the machines. Paul sent me an email to say that he was on the way and would arrive at 7:00. I hung out in the lobby for a while and learned that Ruth had had a stent inserted into her aorta (does that ring any bells?) she spent 72 hours in the hospital and is doing fine but she and her husband will be flying home soon and miss out on your voyage to the Galapagos. I chatted with Sue, Jeff, Barbara and Fritz, who were waiting to go to dinner, as I waited for Paul. Paul showed up right on time and we walked down to the opposite end of Amazonia Avenue and saw a park. He hailed a cab and we went to Old Town—which our group had visited on our first day in Quito. We walked and walked and I got more and more tired. Finally, we went to a very wonderful outdoor restaurant on top of a hotel, called Vista Hermosa in the Café Mirador. The view was astounding—we were in the middle of a bowl in the Andes (much like Cuzco is in an Andean bowl in Peru—in which I had visited many years before) and we could see almost the entire city around us. We ordered dinner; I had pizza and then a harpist came near us and started to play. Then a guitarist joined him—soon the place was too loud to talk so I paid the bill, and we went back outside to a wonderful coffee shop, Café de Fraile, on the 2^nd floor of a building inside Old Town. We chatted for about 30 minutes and when Paul asked me what I wanted to do next, I said, I wanted to go back to the hotel—I had a long day ahead of me. Paul hailed a cab and we got back to hotel at about 11:00. Friz was asleep. Paul lives about 3 blocks from the hotel so it was handy for both of us. I fell asleep at about midnight, still sharing a room with Fritz.

December 9, Saturday. I woke up at 6:00 a.m. but had slept fitfully, worried about sharing a cabin on our cruise to the various Galapagos islands, hoping that Paullina would work it out and give Fritz and me separate cabins. Fritz didn’t snore at all last night. Just before Fritz and I went down to breakfast, we bumped into Paullina who was hurrying out of the hotel with Richard, who had suddenly become very ill. We were all anxious that he would miss the flight to the Galapagos, but Paullina came through and brought him back to the hotel moments before we were scheduled to leave. After an early morning breakfast, we went back to the airport and flew to Guayaquil where I sat in seat 09-A on Aerogalapagos Airlines (and of course, we had a light snack on the plane); we stayed on the plane for 45 minutes as the departing passengers left for Guayaquil and then headed off to San Christobal (eating a breakfast of scrambled eggs, milk and a roll on the plane). We arrived at the island and Fritz and I walked around awhile and I bought 2 more T-shirts—because our ship, the Carina, wasn’t in port. Fritz and I even saw a large yard where the family was drying coffee beans. It was very interesting and I took a few pictures. Then we took a dingy to the Carina. The good news is that Fritz and I will get individual cabins since Ruth and her husband had to drop out of the trip and go home. Thank goodness for small miracles. I was somewhat nervous at the beginning as we headed to the ship but I kept telling myself that the water was only three feet deep—I had almost drowned as a 12-year old and am still deathly afraid of the water (and what a moment it was in my memory of that day the dean called me into his office a few weeks before graduation to inform me I had to pass a swimming test in order to graduate—the first thing my instructor taught me was “the dead man’s float” well that didn’t go over very well but I ultimately learned how to dive off the deep end of the pool and swim like crazy and by the time I reached the other side the P.E. gym teacher told me I should have been on the swim team! HA. I also pictured the water just 3 feet deep at the Great Barrier Reef and it worked at the Galapagos as well. We had lunch on the ship and then went to Isla Lobos and saw the sea lions and birds. Then we came back to the ship, cleaned up, and had a lecture for about an hour before having dinner. I took a seasick pill just in case and am glad I did—several of the guests were quite ill the next morning. Dinner was quite good and in fact, all the meals on the ship were good. We sailed all night and most people got seasick. I pretended I was in a hammock and was fine.

December 10, Sunday. What joy! Fritz and I had separate cabins. We anchored at 4:00 and I woke up then, but I went back to sleep until 6:30. Everyone seemed fine at breakfast at 7:00 except for Alice and Richard who were still under the weather and Laura said she was seasick at night. Today we visited Espanola Island and saw more sea lions on the sandy beach, birds, masked boobies, blue footed boobies, hawks, albatrosses, terns, and then went for a long walk around the island. Paula gave us running explanations throughout the trip and said that you could recognize the difference between male and female blue footed boobies by their poop hills, she continued using this term for the next ten minutes before I took her aside and said YOU MEAN PUPILS-the pupils of their eyes.

Later we went to Gardner Bay on Isla Sante Fe where we saw a dozen or so abandoned sea lion babies and Pauline reminded us of Darwin and his tenet: the survival of the fittest. The fact was that sea lions were able to have a calf every year—but they had to nurse for two years—so when they had a second, they pushed it aside into the sea to die. (As I reread and edited this, I reminded myself of Prince Harry’s book: The Spare”).

Some people snorkeled in the afternoon while I stayed on the boat. Later, we went to Punta Suarez and saw more animals, including a big bird that had fallen out of its nest—Paullina assured us that it would die and again we all remembered Darwin and no one made an effort to “rescue them”.

Back on our small boat, we enjoyed dinner together including several special dishes prepared especially for our vegan friends, Jeff and Susan, whom I had met on the trip down to Ecuador. There was so much of it that I asked to share and brother was it good—soon everyone on our tour was enjoying some of those dishes as well as the rest of the food prepared for us and to tell you the truth, after all the marching and exploring we did each day, we like famished cannibals every evening.

Exhausted, we all headed to our cabins right after it—knowing we would have a rough sea to cross. I took two seasick pills and thought to myself, I’ll be a hammock tonight as the ship rocked and rolled precipitously. Several of the guests had turned off their air conditioning on the first night (Mike and Laura for example) and I asked that mine be turned off as well, but I put it back on as soon as I re-entered the cabin the first night. I’m glad I did because I think that helped to stabilize the temperature and that along with my seasick pill and my fantasy of a hammock, helped me avoid sea sickness.

December 11, Monday. Today we visited Floriana Island and then went to Punta Cormorant where I saw male sea turtles hovering around the beach (they never come on shore after they are hatched) and I cannot imagine these giants mating in the open sea—but whales it and octopi do it along with myriad others. However, we did see a female—exhausted from their mating, sitting on the beach. I also saw cormorants; flamingoes and we all enjoyed the two fantastic beaches on that island. Paula, our guide was a native to the islands and as such enjoyed permanent residency a rare thing in that part of the world which is now so gloriously preserved for all of us to enjoy.

We continued and saw masked boobies, pelicans, and small lizards. Then we had lunch on board our boat before heading off to Post Office Island “to mail our post cards.” This marvelous island was set aside as the POST OFFICE for sailors and crew who docked on the island—they would drop their addressed mail in a sheltered area and await the arrival of a ship heading in their direction. So, for example, you were from New Bedford Massachusetts and had said all the way around the Horn and up the coast of Chile and Peru and your captain headed off to the Far East or even further up the South American coast, you could hope that someone someday would come to this Post Office Island (which presumably every sailor was aware of) rake through the letters and find one or more that would be near one of the ports he would sail to. Then it was, logistically in my opinion, insane that that letter would ultimately arrive at its proper destination. But we all wrote post cards and left them there and raked through the pile and I found one from a fellow tourist who lived in of all places Ashburn Virginia, just a few miles from my home in Falls Church, Virginia. So, of course I took it with me (EDITOR’S Note—I hand delivered that letter when I reached my home a few weeks later thinking about how totally exuberant anyone would have been back I the 19^th century to be able to as ET might have thought: CALL HOME with a letter)

Later we broke up into 4 groups on rowboats and lolled around from place to place, quietly enjoying the stillness and calmness of that mighty ocean I was impressed with how much we saw. I was on Paullina’s boat, and she pointed out rays, sea lions, birds, trees, and penguins.

BTW, the ocean here is fed by 3 major currents, one of which flows up from Antarctica and along it penguins migrate to the equator.

We had our cruise farewell dinner on the ship—and I had an entire new group of friends (EDITOR’S note—Ive visited 100 countries and met hundreds of fellow travelers, native and people in theatres and restaurants and exchanged addresses and kept in contact with them—some I’ve know now for over 40 years).

December 12, Tuesday. Today, we got up at 5:30 so we could visit Darwin Station, drive across the island and make it in time for our flight from the northern end of the island. We took a boat to Isabella, visited Santa Cruz Island, then stopped off at Puerto Ayora to visit the Charles Darwin Station. We walked for what seemed like miles from the bus stop to the station and everyone was getting tired—it was a long trip, and we were still two days away from home with several more excruciatingly long flights ahead of us. This part of the trip should have been easier and even I, the intrepid traveler, was exhausted. We spent far too long there and attended several lectures and stopped off at two more gift shops (I bought another T-shirt for my husband, Tri). We saw the large turtles and learned about the conservation of the turtles at the station—I was impressed with the efforts of the Ecuadorian people and the government ensuring that this resource would remain pristine. Then we took a bus to a river, got in a ferry and went to the other side. Then we got in another bus and were driven to the airport at Baltra Island. We shopped there—but the pickings were slim. I bought Capuchino and water in the small café and then Paullina came dashing in telling everyone to hurry in the embarkation line for our flight back to the mainland. I tossed the nasty dirty yellow raincoat into the trash in the men’s room feeling very guilty about the only rule we were taught: WHAT’S ON THE ISLANDS, STAYS ON THE ISLANDS, WHAT YOU BRING WITH YOU, YOU BAKE BACK HOME, then I hurried into line but didn’t have my boarding pass; I had let Paullina get ahead of me and she was handing them out way in front of the line. I waved at her and she brought me mine. Jeff, Sue and I went through security at about the same time. We waited in the holding area for about 30 minutes or so. Then we went to Guayaquil and on to Quito. I was nearly exhausted by the time we reached the capital—having overdone this trip my legs were sore, my throat was sore and I was nearing exhaustion so as soon as we got back to the hotel, I hurried up to the pharmacy which was two blocks from the hotel and bought meds for sore throat and turned down invitation for farewell dinner—I was too tired. Paul was supposed to come back or to call me and he didn’t. I’m glad—I was just too tired. I bought water from the vendor on the street, repacked everything into one bag and hoped that it would meet the weight restriction of 50 pounds. I tossed more dirty clothes and trash. My bag smells of mildew. I went to bed at 6:30 but didn’t sleep until Fritz returned from dinner at 9:00. I slept fitfully, wondering if Paul would call, wondering if the front desk would honor my wake-up call.

December 13 Wednesday. What a grueling day. I got up at 4:45 and didn’t awaken Fritz. I took a quick shower and put out my bag (having packed both bags into one the night before). The front desk rang us up at 5:15 and Fritz and I headed down to breakfast, which was the normal breakfast, but without eggs. I was pleasantly surprised. Paullina and Fritz joined me at breakfast. Ruth and Don were back with the group—they had stayed in Quito after her operation (a stent) and everyone except me—made the farewell dinner the night before and they all thanked me because they split my dinner! The bus didn’t arrive and Paullina arranged for cabs to take us to the airport. I was in the first cab with Susan and Jeff because our flight to Houston was scheduled to leave the soonest. We paid our departure tax of $37.50 and went through security, etc. Then we sat and talked for about 40 minutes at the boarding gate. I sat in Continental 18-C in a rather large plane and ate a second breakfast. I watched the movie The Devil Wears Prada with Meryl Streep—I had expected more. I slept a little and arrived at Houston at about noon. Jeff, Susan and I cleared customs and immigration and then went to lunch. I had pizza. Then I left them for a different boarding gate (EDITOR’S NOTE: Susan and I remained pen pals for many years—it seems they were about to divorce but had already booked the trip and were totally miserable—I usually sense people’s needs and knew something was amiss but didn’t quite figure it out. At any rate they divorced shortly after their return, and I never heard from Jeff again) I hung around the airport for about 5 hours—I drank a cup of coffee and finished reading Enemy at the Gates—the story of the Fall of Stalingrad. I did several sudoku puzzles. Then I boarded my flight Continental flight to DC on that dinky plane I’d used on the way out (757-500). I sat in A-10. I arrived home at Dulles Airport at 8:30 and Tri was picking up my bag by the time I got Thru customs. I paid $4.00 for parking. We got home at about 9:15; I unpacked and showered. I slept fitfully.

Now for the answers to of ( (+ and (-

The first symbol represents the word “today”, the second is today plus and the final is today minus.