Today, we met Tania at 5:30 am in the lobby. I ate breakfast alone since now Glen is feeling really ill. The airport was the usual gauntlet of a foreign country. First, check in and get boarding pass, then pay airport tax of US$25 per person and get tax stamp, then go through customs, then through security (they have given me no trouble here about handing my camera around, unlike in the States who always gripe at you), then through the boarding pass check, then they searched your carryons, all before you could sit down! Right before we got on the plane, we had one more security measure that was new to me. They lined us up on the tarmac in a row facing out. We had to set down our hand luggage and step back a couple of steps. Then a very happy looking black lab drug dog came by and sniffed each piece before we got on the plane. (I decided that this is a paradise job for a dog-going around and sniffing things).

Now we're on the plane in transit to Miami. I can see the beautiful mountains below me, surrounded by clouds. Yesterday, from Guayaquil to Quito, we saw snow-capped volcanoes up and down the range. I am feeling almost par now and feel sad about leaving Ecuador and the Galapagos.

Overall, it was a fantastic and amazing trip. Quito was clean, safe, lively city with great prospects. They have art, culture, history, and beautiful location, a beautiful city. Compared to a city such as San Jose (Costa Rica), Quito is modern and has great potential. With careful planning and a more stable economy (they are happy to have inflation down to 25%!), I think they will do well.

The Galapagos are truly enchanted isles, but not in the sense that the pirates meant, but in terms of the magical animals and landscape. I will never forget sitting next to a heron while he slept, having flycatchers fly branch to branch to see us, and having a school of dolphins spot us from afar and with an almost audible whoop, swim right for us to swim on the bow wave, tilting their heads to look up at us looking down.

The End (of this trip, but there's always next year!)