In Quito, with Immigration problems

Well, we arrived OK in Quito, all our luggage intact, with no extra fees or problems with our 'boat stuff'.

But just when we thought we had the Ecuadorean immigration situation figured out, we got another surprise. When we went thru Immigration in Quito, they only gave us 5 days!!

This is the remainder of the original 90 days we got when we entered in February. They permit 90 days per year on tourist visas. Period. Even though when we left, our passports from the previous entry said we had about 60 days left. That was because we entered into Ecuador once when the computers were down and they gave us a new 90 days. But the Immigration lady would not budge, not even to give us a few extra days because of the holiday.

We think we know how to get a longer stay visa--lots of paperwork, running around, and some money. But the problem is that Ecuador celebrates Halloween with a vengence. Monday and Tuesday are holidays (and Tuesday is the end of our 5 days). So we are scrambling to get to Guayaquil this morning to try to get the renewal process started before our time runs out and we get fined $200 per passport, on top of the visa fee.

We changed our flight from Quito to Guayaquil to leave earlier, so we have more time today to scramble around. Too bad we're lugging 200lbs of luggage with us (still trying to figure out what to do with it while we run around town).

Just the fun of being sn international traveler on a slow trip around the world...