Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Hey Readers,

Our days are getting shorter, at least we're coming home early!  Today was an interesting one and one of many deep breaths and moving on.

We were supposed to go to the dentist this morning but the co-owner had told us yesterday that it would be this afternoon (I may have said something about it last night).  So, we ate a nice breakfast then went online to make airline reservations to Manta for next Tuesday, returning on Wednesday.  Everything worked okay on the Aerogal airlines (the only one I could find that flies into there) until I completed the reservations request form and was supposed to continue to the next screen for the confirmation and opportunity to pay.  The system would not advance to the next screen - I tried several times but got the same results.  I finally went upstairs to the office; Diego called the airline reservations desk, pressed "2" for English, then gave me the phone.  I made reservations with the lady @ Aerogal without a problem but when she quoted me the price, it was $20.00 higher than their website. I told her I had tried making reservations online but I couldn't access their confirmation of reservation page - she said she was aware that their website was not operating correctly.  I asked her if they are aware that the website is not allowing reservations, do customers still have to pay extra for using their phone reservations, and she said YES!  I took a deep breath and said OK!  Yes, I know you get a break in price on a lot of services when using the internet, but it should not apply if someone's website is down or not working properly.  Okay, the reservation process was complete and she told me they would deliver our tickets to the hostal at no additional charge; I stated that was good and told her where we're staying.  She told me the tickets would be delivered between 1 and 4 p.m. and asked if I would be there to sign for them.  I said no because I had a dental appointment in the afternoon.  She needed a specific name; I tried explaining to her that it is a family owned and operated business and at least one of the family would be here and could sign.  That was not good enough; I had to give her a name!  A deep breath and press on!  I gave her Diego's name; I felt very confident that the messenger who delivered the tickets would give them to anyone who had the money!  Oh, without erasing some of the previous information, I will here regress to after I got the reservations, she asked how I would pay - I said by credit card.  She asked if it was a national card (issued by a bank in Ecuador); I said, "no, it's an international card issued by a bank in the U.S.  OOPS, no good, it had to be a national card! A deep breath and I told her I'd pay with cash.  That was acceptable and I was to give it to the messenger.  Okay, that unexpected cash outflow means I'll have to go to an ATM machine before we leave (have to pay the hostal bill in cash to avoid an 8% fee - this truly is, for the most part, a cash society) and withdraw some cash.

Moving back to after I gave Diego's name to the Aerogol, she needed a phone number where she could reach me in an hour because someone would call back to confirm what we had just done.  Since we were getting ready to go to Curves for Jenny's workout, I gave her my Ecuadorian cell phone number.  We were done!  While at Curves, about an hour and a half later, I had not received a call so I decided to check my cell phone for missed calls (although I have the phone set to vibrate first, then ring loudly, it did neither - that has happened to before to me, and apparently to others); lo & behold, two missed calls, both from the same number.  I called it and it was Aerogal.  I explained what had apparently happened but the girl (different from the one in reservations), asked for my reservation number; well, I had left it in the room! She finally figured out how to find my reservation using our names so we got through that.  She did want to know the name of the person who helped me make the reservations and what time it was done - forgive me, but I don't write down every person's name! Deep breath and explain to her that I did not know the name but told her a rough time, around 9:30 or so.  Finally, we were done, she said tickets would arrive and I should give the cash to the messenger.  I told her I probably would not be here and, to be safe, added the entire family as authorized recipients!  I know you've heard enough of this, but I count is as another experience in Ecuaor.

We were scheduled to go to the dentist around 1:00 p.m., but Daniel had ridden in with his brother because he could not drive his car in today; the law is that each day, license plates ending in certain numbers could not enter the city.  If they do and get caught (high likelihood) their car would be impounded and the owner would have to pay a hefty fine!  The purpose of the law is to reduce congestion and pollution; however, the Ecuadorians are an intelligent people!  Since the law doesn't go into effect until early morning traffic, those who are not supposed to drive come to work before the rule goes into effect then park their vehicles until after it's over (probably around 5 or so!)  So, like many laws in the U.S., it's accomplishing very little!

Anyway, back to the dental appointment!  Daniel's brother had scheduled his car for scheduled maintenance; it was supposed to be ready by 1:00 p.m., but it wasn't until after 4.  During that time, we waited because we didn't know when we'd go.  Deep breath and move on!  We watched some American shows, in English but with subtitles (hey, not bad - helped us with learning Spanish!) on the TV upstairs (remember in a previous blog that I told you to always confirm if the Direct TV is in your personal room!).

Well, we finally made it to the dentist, only to find out that my crowns were not ready, but will be tomorrow morning!  Deep breath!  Not a wasted trip because the dental tech went ahead and cleaned my teeth and found a very small cavity that she went ahead and filled.

We had plans to go to the Mundi cloud forest tomorrow but postponed it until Thursday. I now have a dental appointment for 10:30 tomorrow morning; I think I'll call before we go and confirm my crowns are there.  This is "laid back" Ecuador and no one gets in a hurry except gringos!  I'd better add: it's still a beautiful country and the people are great; it's also their culture so it's us who have to adjust!  Besides, it will give us the opportunity to ride one of the trolleys since Daniel has taken us the other two times.  Jenny is a little apprehensive because they appear to be very crowded; I expressed my confidence by reminding her that I've ridden on Japanese trains with more people than she's seen!

I need to wake Jenny up, help her get her robe off and to her side of the bed then under the covers.

This blog may seem like it's full of complaints and negatives but that's not it at all. I'm just expressing how things are not wrong, just different (an expression from Brother Jeff Davoll).  Everything we've done has been a learning experience.  Although some appear to be frustrating, the experience is great!

By the way, if you do read our blogs, please mark one of the boxes at the end of them so we will see how many folks are reading them.  Folks, this is a lot of work and rough on an old man's fingers and eyes, :-), so I don't want the effort to go unnoticed.  Sometimes, I even have to recall what I've already typed because I hit a wrong (yes, wrong instead of different! LOL!) key and erase things I've already typed. 

Jess Moody, since this thing auto-saves what I've typed every 2-3 minutes, how do I recover it when I mess up???

Tomorrow will be full of new adventures, experiences, and memories; we're looking forward to it.