South American Tour: Quayaquil, Ecuador (1965)

Wednesday, January, 6th 1965 Enroute to Quayaquil, Ecuador

This was the day we would cross the equator. The Captain announced it would be shortly after noon, so the ceremony was set to follow the noon luncheon. We received an "official" summons to attend the trial in bathing suits. We spent several hours in preparation so that the polywags could appeared as captured pirates of Henry Morgan's Crew: we waited until all the others were seated then we entered thru the kitchen door. There all of us were tied and roped together and led by Morgan at a funeral dirge pace. Then we marched twice around in complete silence. "Lags," Martin said later that he was afraid we had stolen the show. After the luncheon we convened on the after deck. Each neophyte is brought before King Neptune tried for some offense and, of course, found guilty, and sentenced to execute certain duties. The Captain and Chief attended the entire performance.

Thursday, January 7th 1965 Quayaquil, Ecuador

The ship docked at Quayaquil at 7 AM. The Finnerty's and we had packed for a trip to Quito. We left after breakfast and walked over to Customs on the dock. Had to wait until an officer arrived. Passed OK. Then to ships agents office. He turned us over to a Senor Olmedo Velasquez of Servetour. 

Thursday, January 7th 1965 Quayuaquil to Quito, Ecuador

Valasquez was to line up a plane trip to Quito and return by train the following day. here is what South American Travel Association says about train trip:

The plane was to leave at 12 noon. We waited, waited, waited, in the agents office for Taxi. According to Spanish Customs its a waste of time to hurry. The taxi showed up at 11:40. Fortunately, the plane was late, left at 12:40. The fare was 508,80 sucres - $28.00. we were in Quito in one hour and 30 minutes. We were above the clouds all the way so we didn't get to see the Andres. Went to Humball Hotel in center of town, took a taxi tour around the town, had a guide who spoke good English - son of a general in Ecuadorian Army and back to Hotel. Told the Clerk we would check out tomorrow morning and take train back to Quayuaquil. He looked queerly and said softly there is no train to Quayuaquil tomorrow. From here on in confusion reigned. If we waited over to Saturday for Train, then there was no plane to Luna all weekend and we could not rejoin ship. Karen's birthday was on Saturday and she was delighted in Lima and we had promised to be there for her birthday.

Airport Ticket

Uruguay Peso

The Finnerty's ran into a civil engineer in the Hotel who was from Montevideo (Uruguay). He spoke excellent English and he helped us with our problem. We tentatively decided to hire a taxi and return over the service highway which makes a similar trip to the train. We had several calls from ship's agent to Guayaquil who had evidently discovered the tour agents error in the train and wanted to know what we where going to do. We didn't know either. So we went to Hotel Quito for dinner and took Juan Gonzales the chap from Montevideo with us. Had steak - only fair. It had started raining while we were in the hotel and was still raining. The taxi driver was waiting for us. So home and to bed. Room quite cool - but no heat in Quito.

Friday, January 8th 1965 Quito to Quayaquil

Up at six. Decided to taxi back to Qauyaquil. Packed, had breakfast, paid hotel bill and loaded luggage in trunk of 1954 Pontiac Eight and away we went for Qauyaquil 266 miles away. Had to advance the driver $1000 for gas and oil. We soon discovered on a slight grade that the motor was not in good condition no power, and we had two Andean Mountain ranges to go over. Nevertheless it was beautiful and unusual. We have never seen the farming on the steep sides of a mountain, the weather, at one place we ran into an Indian ceremony. we heard music and looked up on the side of the mountain and there they were some with painted faces,others with masks. When the car stopped all of them, about 50 came down the slope and surrounded the car. Then came the inevitable hand-out we paid off and got going. The Andes are not in the rugged class except where they go about 15000. They are heavily foliage and much of it is under cultivation, most of it on slopes so steep it does not seem possible to plow but plow they do.

We saw small active volcano. Later in the day the driver missed a road and we went on for miles, no signs, no town, no houses, no gasoline stations and the needle quite bobbing around. We found a station before it was too late and had a coffee and roll. It was 4 pm and we were 125 miles from base. We were averaging 25 miles per hour. At no time had the driver pushed passed 75 kms or 50 miles an hour. Back on the road. It hadn't been good since we left the Panama Highway in mid morning. Now it was worse. The driver zigged and zagged to dodge the chuck holes.

While at breakfast this morning we had a phone call from Larson agent in Quito. He said had a request from the agent in Guayaquil to check on our time of return to our ship. I told him we were leaving by taxi within an hour and the driver thought we should be in by seven. Had some one check on our plane reservations, plane to Lima, hotel for tonight, and get our passports ready. To emphasize I had Millie repeat the whole thing.

The driver got lost several times came in on wrong road which added 50 miles to trip had to change a tire and slowness of car resulted in it being 11:30 PM before we arrived.



Our hotel reservations were for June 7, not for tonight but there was plenty of room. No plane reservations on Braniff for Lima and the tour agent couldn't be located. We spent the next 2 hours telephoning. Millie found one bright spot in the Spanish and that was Senorita Sofa al Braniff Air lines in Quayaquil. She was most sympathetic and offered to help. She said she would be tied up for an hour with Braniff planes coming in and departing but said she would attempt to located the man with our passports. (We were scheduled to fly out to Lima at 7 am, but we couldn't land without passports), At 1:15 we decided to get some shuteye and leave it to Braniff.