May 16- Quito

 This morning we flew from Cuzco to Quito via Lima.  It was one of our early-morning departures so this sign at the vending machine was not happy news.  

It should be noted that cold beer was readily available from nearby vending machines but that was NOT what I needed.  Fortunately the hotel had put out breakfast early for our group.

We had the afternoon to ourselves to explore Quito and then met with Juana, our Ecuadorean guide, who was also a certified naturalist and would join us in the Galapagos.

I walked all over creation (a habit of mine when I'm left to my own devices) and finally found the supermarket Juana recommended.  Catch-22:I  needed to buy a SIM card for my phone and couldn’t use my navigation apps till I had one!  Well, I did find a boatload of bank ATMs and the Paraguayan Embassy along the way.  Weird sighting at the supermarket- an employee carrying a shrink-wrapped copy of “Mi Luche”-  yeah, Mein Kampf.  It had a giant swastika on it.  I can’t believe there would be a demand for it.  Scary.

I had a frustrating time getting the SIM card up and running- had to decipher the Spanish instructions, enter long strings of numbers, got kicked out once, scanned my passport..looked like it was all accepted but the card cost only $1.99 and I can’t find the app I need to top it up.  I decided to go back to the store tomorrow and see if I could do it there.