San Isidro Adventure

This photo should be at the end of the post, not the beginning...

Sunday, November 30th. We're at Cabanas San Isidro on the Eastern slope of the Andes.

I made it into the town of Baeza yesterday, but was not able to hook
up my laptop to the available internet connection, even with lots of
help from the young girl who worked there. So, I'll keep writing
because it keeps me sane, and others may read it someday, or not.

Bus rides in Ecuador are a bit scary. I don't hear of many ending up
over the cliffs, but the drivers do not inspire confidence. On the way
back to Cosanga, the driver was flirting with a young lady in tight
clothes and high heels that shared the driving area with him. He
passed a large cement truck on a winding road that he thought was too
slow. I thought it was a perfect speed for both of them. We came to a
single lane bridge with another bus heading for it too coming from the
opposite direction. Neither bus slowed down and met on the bridge
windshield to windshield, inches away from touching! This time the
entire group of passengers in our bus inhaled at once in a big
oooohhh, in Spanish. So I guess this wasn't a common occurrence, they
said nothing about the crazy passing of the cement truck.
Turned out our bus driver was the more macho, and the other bus had to
back up.

To add more excitement the bus TV was playing a Bruce Willis movie,
loudly in Spanish, with a chase scene of Bruce driving a tractor
trailer through freeway underpasses, LA?, while a stealth bomber was
flying low trying to annihilate him. Great sound track when you're on
the bus in the mountains of Ecuador! Maybe the action movies are there
to distract you from knowing when you careen off the road into the
great beyond, you'll just think it's the movie.

The guests that have been here for a week left this morning. Breakfast
at 5:30 and I joined them to say good bye. It's sad to see a group
depart, I get attached to a few of them, and then they are gone. We
exchanged emails and as they are birders we may see them again, very
nice Americans.

Ian went with them, and will have to find his way back to San Isidro
on his own, on a public bus. He's used to the groups private bus, but
decided to give it a try, he didn't want to miss today's birding. The
staff will all leave this morning as we have no other guests until
tomorrow, so I'll hold the fort down on my own. There will be one
other person around to take care of the grounds. No fancy meal
tonight, I'll be fending for us with whatever I can whip up from the
kitchen.

I miss Joe. I liked it much better when we were able to Skype every
evening when we were in Quito, but I haven't talked to him in over a
week. Skype is great, when we have a high speed internet connection we
can see each other on our laptops and speak in real time, so cool, and
there is no extra charge above the usual internet connection. Great
technology.

Here's a photo of the American birding group that Mitch led as they
were on their way back to Quito. I asked them to gather together for a
group photo, but some birds flew overhead and distracted them. Typico
behavior for birders! Ian's on the far right.