18.02.10

To my surprise, Lou and Lynn had a change of heart, and Lynn informed Des and I that she and Lou would be riding to Columbia and not be flying with us to Pananma City . That's a shame. We’ll miss our travelling partners. Des and I continued on with our plans for freighting our bikes with Pan Atlantic on Lan Cargo Airlines.

19.02.10

One of the employees of the Savoy Hotel, Daniel, offered to drive me around to get the paperwork notarized for the shipping agent. It was so easy with Daniel’s help, as he spoke English.

In the afternoon, Des and I went to The Mitad del Mundo at 0 0 0 Latitude, to stand on the line which is the middle of the earth, just like other tourists, one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the Southern. It’s a big complex with lots of other attractions like a Planetarium, Insectarium and many stalls and shops.

20.02.10

The four of us made a day trip today to TeleferiQo, on the advice of the young Russian cook here at the Savoy Hotel, who is here on a working exchange to learn to speak Spanish . His English is pretty good too. TeleferiQo has a chair lift which took us up to 4100 meters to view one of Quito’s active volcanoes. We didn’t see any plumes of smoke but the scene was very spectacular and cool up there. In the afternoon, clouds settled in the valley which added a bit of mystery to the view.

Lou and Des’s new mechanic friend Diego, organized a dinner for the four of us and 3 other riders, Taz and Joel, who are riding 250cc Kawasakis, and Alisa who has a Suzuki 650cc and is travelling on her own. We went to a Tony Roma’s restaurant and exchanged stories about our adventures.

The next day Des and I went to pick up Taz and Joel’s maps of Central America, which they offered us. So nice of them. They are a great adventurous couple who have rented an apartment in Quito for a month, to veg out for awhile.

22.02.10

Des and I rode the bikes to the Pan Atlantic warehouse today to get them ready for the plane to Panama City. Des had to take off the windshields and rear vision mirrors, empty the fuel tanks and disconnect the batteries. Luckily he was able to do it all in the shade.

I caught a taxi to the Panamanian Embassy to enquire if we needed Visas to enter Panama. It turned out we don’t. I also made some enquiries with Copa Airlines about the cost of flying to Cuba, which Des is keen to do.

In the evening Diego and Alisa came to the Hotel. Des had arranged , at the previous dinner, to purchase her maps of Central America and Mexico. Now we each have a set to refer to in our tank bags.