Leaving Ecuador for Good!

Monday May 18

This will be a very, very long day. In fact, it will go over to another full day.

I got up at 6.30am and I woke Jayne up at 7.15am. We both got busy in getting ready for our move.

About 9.30am I left to pay the bills for Conocoto. On the gate door I saw the bill for the electric was delivered. This came at just the right time.

We had lunch at 11.30am.

I went to put out the trash and and I saw our driver in the van across the street. It was 1.15pm and he was to come at 1.30pm. So, he was probably waiting until it was 1.30pm to righ the bell.
I had him come in the drive way and I closed the gate. I asked him to wait and we were still get ready. I had Matt's driver come because I didn't want the neighbours or a taxi driver to see that we were leaving for the airport. Can't risk another robbery, as they could take furniture.

Our trip finally begins.

At the airport we found we were overweight. Jayne's big suitcase was 31.25 kilos. The maximum is 23 kilos (from within the EU it's 20 kilos). Then her small suitcase was 13 kilos.

He said that we would have to pay for the excess. This happened at the place where we got the luggage plastic wrapped. Of course, the guy at the luggage check-in will say the same thing. Then my bag was put on the scales and it read 33.4 kilos.

As it turned out I had to pay $152. Jayne thinks that the total did not include my luggage.
Jayne noticed that our luggage was marked with a final destination of Amsterdam. She said this is wrong. He then got another guy to call to another guy to send our luggage back (on the conveyor belt). It's not what the guy did was wrong, as we were to pick up our luggage in Madrid and check in onto KLM (from Iberia). But Jayne was smart and quick in doing this.

It will save us from having to pick up the luggage and carrying it all the way to another terminal and also from possibly paying another excess weight charge! So, this saved us at least $152.
It was a good thing that I had extra dollars.

Then it was off to pay for the departure tax (another government rip off that nations have). This cost $41 each.

Before we left, we had coffee in the bar. Then I saw that I had a lot of US coins that I know I would not be able to change anywhere. I decided to buy something at the airport; otherwise the money would be useless unless I went back to the US. I looked at some natural chocolate that they were selling and that was $11 for a small box! Then I went to the liquor store and thought I would get more value for the money and it would make a nice gift for Lil. So, I bought a bottle of Denmark vodka. I was told that if I don't open it and show them the receipt I could take this on the plane. And that I could drink it on the plane.

We left for Guayaquil, Ecuador on time. It was a 30 minute flight. However, we had to get off the plane. Thought we were in the transit area we had to go thought the metal detector again. How stupid! What do they think a passenger might do - take something illegal from a passing UFO?!
The food on the plane was so-so and not much of it. We both ordered vegetarian.