Thursday, March 14 – transit from Cuenca to Quito

Had a morning departure for the short flight from Cuenca to Quito. The cab fare to the airport was $3 (yes!!). Since I’m heading to Santiago tomorrow, I just booked a place by the airport in Quito. The airport hotel that I stayed at last week was fully booked, so I went with a B&B that had good reviews. Cost: $24 for the night plus $10 taxi fare each way to/from airport.

Here are some pictures from the B&B (a very cute place!)…

Sidenote: I was joined at breakfast by another guest – a young women from Germany. She mentioned that she was traveling to Costa Rica, but was out of money, so she was a little scared (I guess!). Obviously she was angling to extract some funds from me, but I sidestepped that topic!

Friday, March 15 – transit from Quito to Santiago

My flight left around noon today, so it was nice to have a leisurely morning. I am connecting through Lima again, but my layover is only about three hours this time (you may recall that my previous layover here was around 10 hours!). The downside to my noon departure is that I will be landing in Santiago around 11:30pm. (One-way flight cost: $467) That’s one of the reasons I booked the same hotel as my previous stay in Santiago – familiarity upon arrival in the middle of the night! I also liked the hotel and the neighborhood where it is located. I ended up paying a little more this time around ($76/night, incl breakfast).

So, our flight was a little late leaving, immigration at the airport was incredibly slow, and I opted for a shared minivan instead of a taxi to my hotel ($11 v. $28; I can’t help it!!) – all that equates to a 2am arrival at the hotel. I was the second to last (out of 5) drop off from the minivan, but I must say I kind of enjoyed observing various parts of Santiago during the late night drive.

Travel Note: On the flight from Quito to Lima I spotted an elderly gentleman wearing a UW cap. He was accompanied by his wife. I was going to give them a shout out…until they caused a massive bottleneck during boarding because they were sitting in the wrong seats. After that I figured it would be best not to be associated with them!

Sidenote: I’ve enjoyed my time in Bolivia and Ecuador, but I’m looking forward to the return to Chile (and Argentina) for a couple reasons: a) I’ll no longer need to be concerned about what I eat and drink, and b) Rather than disposing of it in the wastebasket, I’ll now be able to flush my used toilet paper!

Saturday, March 16 and Sunday, March 17 – Santiago

It was a beautiful weekend in Santiago – clear skies with a high temp of around 80. I was on a mission these two days – to find a carving (or carvings) of the Easter Island Moai statues, made from Lapis Lazuli, which is a stone native only to Chile and Afghanistan. There are many shops and markets in Santiago that sell items made from this stone, so it was fun for me to walk around and check them out. One problem – I thought I could remember the carvings that I liked and the prices that were best, but soon they all started to blur together! (Yes, I’m rather dense!) So, I spent Saturday exploring the shops and Sunday going back and taking pictures (and notes) of the ones I liked. I finally ended up buying two on Sunday. (my 2nd and 3rd, and likely last, souvenirs of the trip)

I took a few pictures (besides those of the Moai carvings!) during my roaming around, but most of areas I covered I had photographed during my last stay in Santiago. So, here are a few pictures of my roaming and a couple pictures of my purchases…

The photos of the carvings I purchased are those taken during the investigative phase of my shopping mission. Therefore, they’re not the greatest quality. I would’ve posted better pictures, but each carving is now wrapped and protected for travel, so I didn’t want to undo that.

Tomorrow I’m traveling to Easter Island. It’s the part of the trip that I’ve been looking forward to most. Hopefully I won’t be let down!