November Happenings - Cruising, Flying & Panicking

Well, we are back in Ecuador for our final 6 weeks. It's been a bit of a whirlwind since our return, we came straight from our 14 day cruise here (after a nine hour wait in Miami airport, sweetened by spending it in the Admiral's Club).

Our flight was uneventful, other than being a bit late taking off due to the weather that had moved into the area. That meant a landing at 3am rather than the scheduled 2am which wasn't a huge problem. We sailed through immigrations and customs, found a taxi willing to load our 2 footlockers, 3 large rolling duffels, carry-ons and us on to the Marriott Courtyard in Guayaquil. As during out visit before, we enjoyed our stay there. Very comfortable, great free wifi, good food and wonderful staff.

Oh? You want to know about the cruise? Sorry, got a bit distracted. The cruise was great! Wonderful weather, no accidents during diving (remember Stu's little incident on our last cruise? 6 stitches from a brush with coral) We had an amazing room steward and made friends with the barista at the coffee spot where I got hooked on iced cappuccino (I'd never had a foo-foo coffee before).

Stu got in lots of scuba diving, I did a couple of solo excursions (Aruba: butterfly farm, natural bridge and, thankfully, the factory for Aruba Aloe. I had gotten terribly bug bitten our last night in Florida and the itching was bad. They had a product that helped me tremendously. St. Lucia: Aerial cable car ride through the rain forest - really enjoyed this.) Stu & I did a river tubing trip in Grenada. We really enjoyed the actual tubing but our transportation was a bit lacking.

Here are few photos to give you a flavor of our two weeks, way too many to even pick favorites. You can see all the photos we took on SmugMug.










We did have one memorable moment that wasn't captured on camera but should have been. Stu, being the sweet and thoughtful hubby that he is, brought me back a gift from his first scuba outing. It was a beautiful, small conch shell that he had cleaned for me to save.

I picked it up and it felt heavier than I expected....I turned it over and.... SCREAMED AND DROPPED IT! Little red legs were crawling out towards me. The crab that had taken this as his home had survived a fresh water rinsing with all Stu's gear AND a soaking in the bathroom sink in tap water.

I am terrified by things with lots of legs - spiders and crabs, especially! Oh well, it was the thought that counts. Love you, Stu!