Sunday-Monday-Tuesday
June 23-24-25, 2013 update #493
Sunday June 23:
After wasting five hours wandering around the smoky casino
at the Grand Sierra, I retrieved my bags and headed to the the Reno Airport
My trek began with a very short flight to LAX in Los Angeles to have my
shortest connection on this trip at only 2.5 hours. The plane was a Bombardier CJ7 wiener plane
and we had to descend the stairs on arrival.
Then we were led to a big bus to haul us to the proper terminal. This seemed almost scary as convoys of
vehicles are sharing taxiways with monster aircraft and driving in amongst
parked aircraft and those trying to get in and out. This is just an accident waiting to happen
for sure.
I spent most of my time just grabbing a small bite and
walking as much as possible to keep exercised amongst all the sitting around
that I would do later. They were griping
about carry-on sizes so I checked my large carry-on right through to Guayaquil . It only contained my clothes and toiletries
so I wouldn’t miss it and wouldn’t have to lug it until my last stop.
The next flight was a red-eye to Miami , leaving at 11:40.
Monday June 24:
The flight arrived at 7:50am. I had borrowed one of those bead pillows from
my Mom and that certainly was a good move on my part. Airplane seats are not very comfortable to
start with and certainly don’t provide any ergonomic neck support. That little pillow made the flights passably
enjoyable.
While I am beginning to hate airports and their pricing, I
do enjoy planes and watching the aerodynamics as they take-off and land. My new camera and lens were enjoying these
sights, especially from the vantage point of the moving SkyTrain. Of particular note was a huge “DreamLifter”
cargo plane on the opposite side of the tarmac. According to Boeing “The Boeing DreamLifter
is a modified 747, 400 passenger airplane, that can haul more cargo by volume
than any airplane in the world”. It
makes the other airliners look like midgets.
Since my next flight didn’t leave until 3:30pm I had a lot
of time to kill. Riding the SkyTrain
and walking the length of the terminal a couple of times helped accomplish
that. Miami doesn’t have any free wi-fi so I
couldn’t use that to while away some of it.
We finally got underway to get to Guayaquil airport at 6:50pm and I hustled my
butt to be quickly into the immigration lineup.
Luckily, security and immigration lineups were light for this entire
trip and I am certainly thankful for those small mercies. Then it was the mad rush to retrieve my
bags. They had some guys pulling most of
them off the belts while others twirled around endlessly. I found my big suitcase and the prior
repaired hole had survived the trip all the way from Reno in good shape. I ran around the area several time looking
for the carry-on and was panicking when the belt buzzer rang and it
stopped. Wouldn’t you know it, my
carry-on was the very last item to peek through those heavy plastic drapes on
the carousel. I was fortunate to get
waived through the secondary x-ray and screening so I hustled out to grab a
cab. The distance isn’t great to get to
the bus depot but I figured the next bus was at 8pm and I intended to be on
it. For some reason, they hide the
ticket counters at the far right rear of the bus depot, behind all the sales
shops, and as far away from the escalators up to the buses as possible. Believe it or not, the Cuenca buses are up on the third floor and
dragging the 3 bags has this old guys sweating like potential murder victim. The buses are not air-conditioned either so,
until you are underway, that hot and muggy weather has the waterworks of the
body gushing forth. Needless to say, I
changed seats until I could get a seat by myself where I could open the window
and stick my head out like a dog for the beginning of the journey. The bus ride is a bit of a milk-run,
stopping for passengers at several stops along the way. It finally pulled into Cuenca at midnight.
Tuesday June 25:
A subsequent cab from Terminal Terrestre got me home around
12:30am. Bella was still playing bridge
so she wasn’t even home but I got a great reception from the Boys who were
certainly glad to see me. When Bella did
arrive home we did get to compare notes on the many happenings on both American
continents before snuggling up for a while.
I got a decent 8 hours of sleep had a very welcome shower
before the two of us headed out to try to sign a petition (as part owners) of
the Coopera Credit Union to head off the proposed liquidation of a very viable
institution. The doors were closed at
11:50 when we arrived so we wandered over to Banco Pichincha to do some banking
before coming back to try again. This
time the door was open and we met the Ecuadorian lawyer and another couple
spearheading the drive to save Coopera.
Apparently they were off at the courthouse filing an injunction against
the liquidation and we should have results by tomorrow. This whole situation reeks, mostly of
cronyism and dirty politics. If there
are crooked dealings by 3 individuals, not using Coopera assets, then why
aren’t they only prosecuting those 3 individuals instead of putting hundreds of
people out of work and killing a viable business owned by 20% of the
population. The stink of this process
just won’t get out of our nose.
Bella had mentioned to them that she had been at the Monay
Coopera Food Store on Thursday and yesterday and noticed almost empty meat and
fish and dairy coolers, some with signs that they were damaged. Again, this makes entirely no sense at
all. Bella volunteered me to go take
photos of this because the lawyer wanted every shred of proof available, so I
did that deed once we arrived home.
So much to do, and so little time…..
That was the day's
excitement, Cheers, Al Please see all new photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/
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