The Dental Finale

We headed back to Ibarra to get our final dental work done. Mary's caps and implants were all ready for final fitting and I had to get my crowns glued in. Mary had a long session with a few final adjustments and her wonderful new teeth were in. There was great excitement in the dentist's office with dozens of pictures being snapped of the final product. It was great to see as he was so proud of his work. He has a photographic record of the whole process and is sending us a DVD.

Dr Bolanos and one of his assistants. Note Mary's shinny new teeth!

We decided to go back to Cotacachi for a few days to relax and we met some local builders who were developing a small subdivision of homes of adobe construction. He took us through one home that was about 2500 sq. ft. with all kinds of wood blended in, much like the Whistler homes. The logs were laurel which was hard for us to believe as laurel here is just in hedges. However, in the hot moist jungle areas of Ecuador it gets up to 8 inches in diameter. The house was selling for $155,000 US which included a big lot - no wonder people are moving and buying in Ecuador.

We were staying in a hostel in town which was not very nice and our guide volunteered that he had very a very good connection with a deluxe hotel called Rancho Santa Fe and he could get us a room there for $28 a night including tax. We jumped at it as we knew the place and shared the 60 room hotel and 200 seat dinning room with two other couples! Talk about poor marketing!



The only fault of the hotel was it didn't have a good TV connection and no ESPN so we couldn't watch the US, Canada hockey game. This resulted in a mad dash around town to try to find a bar or restaurant that would have it on. Of course, in this soccer mad country, no one cared about hockey so we missed the big game.

We discovered a small restaurant called Serendipity that is owned by an American lady. They serve very nice meals and in particular, very good brewed Ecuadorian coffee which is rare as most is instant everywhere which is hard to understand as they grow really good coffee. Needless to say the place was a regular visiting place for all the US expats living there. We resisted the urge to go back and gloat about the hockey game result!

We had 7 days left in Ecudor so we decided to head for the coast again. Through a friend we were able to get a return flight for the two of us for $140 (half price for seniors!). This 40 minute flight appealed to us much more than another 10 hour bus so off we flew to Manta. We were expecting a small coastal town but Manta is quite large with a huge fishing industry. The Travel agent who had booked our flight also booked a hotel for us for the first night. It was about 500 yards from the beach so we ventured across and had dinner in a cabana right on the beach and watched the surf roll in.

The outlook was quite fun as dozens of people were crashing around in the waves and enjoying the surf. The other floor show were dozens of huge Pelican birds constantly diving for fish. Some birds dive quite gracefully but the Pelican resembles an airplane crashing and you feel their 9 ft wings should be ripped off as they hit the water. There were also large flocks of Frigate birds cruising around looking to steal fish from other birds whenever they could. It reminded us of our visit to the Galapagos years ago.

My back had been quite sore and the pain was starting to go down my left leg. We hobbled back to our hotel and up to our room on the 1st floor. I didn't realize at the time that it would be my only visit to the Manta beach. The next morning I couldn't walk and the pain was unbelievable.I suspected it was a disc pressing on the sciatic nerve so we found a Physiotherapist and had a few appointments which were worthless.

The next 6 days I was a prisoner in the room as without an elevator, I couldn't get downstairs. The hotel was fantastic as they gladly brought meals up to the room for me. The owners had two 20 year old sons who spoke some English and were also very helpful.

One of our amusements was watching Ecuadorian volleyball, a special 3 man per side game with very different rules compared to NA volleyball. Almost anything goes in getting the ball over the net as placement of the ball is the whole game as there is no spiking as the net is higher. Pushes and throws seem to go on regularly to try to get the opposite side out of position. There were two courts in the park right in front of our hotel and they were busy from 4.00 PM to 11.00 as one was floodlit. It was very entertaining to watch as the skill level was very high. We also watched a few games in Ibarra where according to our friend, big money is bet on the games as several hundred people come out to watch every night.

                                                                 Manta

                                                          Volleyball in Ibarra

Then came the ultimate challenge, getting me down the stairs! They brought up a wheelchair and the plan was to carry me down in it. The two boys were close to 6ft. and very fit and strong. They also conscripted the security guard who fortunately was built like a weight lifter. We started down the stairs with everyone grunting and groaning and me holding my breath in fear. This is a curving slippery marble staircase and I hate to think what would have happened if one of them slipped! The mission was accomplished with lots of congratulations and thanks and we were off to the airport.

The next step was getting me on the plane as this airport didn't have level accordion loading - just a stairway up to the plane! They wheeled me out to the plane and three guys grabbed the chair and with a "un, dos, tres, go", they hoisted me up the stairs. This exercise was repeated several times until we got to Bogata where they had level loading. Airport staff wheeled me around through security past all the line ups - it sometimes pays to be a crock!

We had a long wait in the busy Bogata airport as Copa airlines were unwilling to alter flight times unless we nealy paid for a whole new ticket so we told them to get stuffed and vowed never to fly Copa again. Aerogal Airlines on the other hand couldn't do enough for us and changed flight times with no charge or trouble. Columbia is still on the peso and everthing costs thousands - our $100 hotel on the way down was 200,000 pesos!

Intercontinental Air Canada flights are very different to in Canada flights. A blanket and pillow free and we were served a nice roast chicken dinner with free wine or beer. Not like the local flights when you pay for nearly everything.

We arrived in Toronto and easily made our fairly tight connection to Vancouver with some terrific help from Air Canada staff. We were so glad to see Canada again we were just about in tears!

Glad to be home, it was quite an adventure for us!

                                                             The $6000 smile!