Otavalo bound

Heading to the grocery store

And then on to the bus terminal

Looks like important information is being imparted!

Seatmates

Sights along the way

Lunch at David's

Several of the workers were getting together for lunch at David Lansdale's on Monday before everyone left town.  We decided it would be good to accept the invitation, so we lugged all our things to David's so that we could depart for the bus terminal after lunch and a quick grocery shopping trip.

Luz

Henry & Lilia

At Gonzalo and Celia's

As has happened before, I'm combining pictures from various cameras for these blog entries, so the order will be a bit random.  And once again, I'm not taking the time to chronologize them.  Please forgive me.  :-) 

Juan Túquerres, the baker

Fresh bread

I can gain weight just sniffing in this place.

Grandma got the princess room.

Gonzalo Túquerres

We got to pick out our own bread for breakfast.

Celia mans the register.

Bread ovens

They also have a kind of café area.

Looking through the dining room to the house kitchen

The door we snuck in last night

Breakfast

Sorting through the Stuff

When my family comes, it's always like Christmas, my birthday and any other gift-giving holiday rolled into one.  And the majority of it is food.  No, I'm by no means starving here, but somehow when you know someone is coming from home, you start craving things you just can't get here!  Fortunately, my family members are always glad to oblige.  :-)

This is what our first morning together looked like.

Backing up a bit

Having now received all the pictures taken by my familial visitors back in July, I shall proceed to chronicle our brief time together a few months ago now.  

Aunt Beth arrived first, the night of Sunday, July 2.  I got to the airport shortly before her flight was due in, having traveled by bus from Lago Agrio after the conclusion of the Special Meetings there that day.  When Aunt B did not make an appearance long after her flight blinked "Arrived" on the monitors, I began to wonder as to the cause of delay.  Finally, I found out.  A rather harried Aunt Beth came through the doors leading out of customs accompanied by an airport employee.  She indeed had arrived, but her luggage had not.  She needed information concerning our whereabouts for the rest of the week; the airport would deliver her bags to whatever address we gave them.  (Stay tuned for the rest of this story!)  I gave her the address of the family where we would spend that night, and she headed back into the bowels of customs to finish the paperwork that would reunite her with her belongings some sweet day.  When at last she came through the doors again, we greeted each other more officially and proceeded to wait for the others.  It wouldn't be long now!  

Mom, Grandma Rodgers and Aunt Rhonda arrived on schedule as did their luggage.  Thanks to Grandma, they were even able to go through the fast lane.  Age does have some benefits!  

We snuck into the Túquerres household in the wee hours of Monday morning and made it into bed relatively quickly.  

Yay for visitors!!!!

I traveled Firts Class all the way from Lago Agrio!  

A very important document!

Aunt Beth checks to see what she actually does have with her presently.

Very Better T-Shirt's

When Karmen and I were younger and in travel mode, we had the opportunity to visit several countries in which English was not the native language.  One one of these trips, we had the idea to create a company that would produce t-shirts for exclusive sale in the foreign market.  Our corporation would be called "Very Better T-Shirt's", and each garment would bear random English words or phrases, including as many apostrophe's as possible.  (Yes, I did that on purpose.)

Our enterprise never got off the ground, so the idea is still up for grabs.  However, you will have some competition from whatever company produced the sweatshirt with this slogan (seen at the bus terminal in Ipiales not too long ago).

CHAN

     GE

ONE'S

MIND