Canada Geese are the only ones enjoying Britannia Beach in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Cancun, Mexico on November 1st.

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Problems in Ecuador

We don't ever talk about politics here unless it directly affects our travels. And in this situation, it might.

There is some civil unrest going on in Ecuador right now. Last week, the President removed the government oil subsidy and almost overnight the price of fuel doubled. So, people are upset... especially the transportation unions.

This has caused riots in the central Quito area and that in turn has caused the Government to move operations from Quito to the city of Guayaquil.

But so far, we are still going.

From reading various accounts from people on the ground, it is fairly easy to avoid the high tension areas. And while transportation may end up being a problem once we get to Guayaquil, a lot can change (both to the good, and to the bad) over a short period of time. Planes are still flying into and out of Quito airport and there is still movement to and from the city.

So it's not ideal, but we will make the best of it. And we're not about to cancel the whole trip, unless the Government of Canada issues a "do not travel" warning at which time we would be able to use travel insurance to cancel our flights.

Provided our Airbnb host thinks we can make it from the airport to his place, we are still headed out on Sunday.

In other news... we had visitors yesterday! John and Dianne are friends from Elliot Lake, Ontario. We first met them through this blog when we were coming through their area back in 2013. They still have a summer house there, but also now live in a condo here in Ottawa. So we had them over for lunch yesterday and we went for a walk down at the conservation area.

Having some lunch outside.

It was a gorgeous October day. Sunny blue sky with a high of about 17C (63F) and no wind to speak of. Supposed to be the same today and tomorrow. We'll take it!


John, Dianne, Ruth, and Kevin.

Some fall colors.

Beautiful.



Had a fun afternoon and it was great to see them again. Today, we are headed into the city for lunch with my mom and then I'm going to play pool with our son Alex this evening.

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13 comments:

  1. I saw that news yesterday, I don't really understand what is going on in Ecuador but truly hope it doesn't affect your plans. The country needs all the tourist dollars it can get.

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    1. It is related to the government removing the gas subsidy overnight so the price of gas really jumped. Unfortunately the government had no choice as they borrow money to keep the country running because they use the US dollar rather than having their own currency and one of the stipulations to the loan was that they couldn't be "giving" the gas away like that. We are hoping that it won't affect our plans either.

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  2. Replies
    1. Yes, the colours are finally starting to come out in this area. :-)

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  3. We are in Cuenca Ecuador and love living here. Unfortunately things are not what they normally are. After you fly into Guayaquil, where do you go from there? They have many of the main road blocked by protesters. I do hope you can make it, and if you make it to Cuenca, we'd love to meet you guys. Hopefully things will calm down soon. Take care, Diane and Brian Brown

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    Replies
    1. You certainly live in a beautiful city. I love Cuenca. Ecuador is a pretty big country and I think if you avoid some major areas, or pay attention to what's going on, most of it can be avoided. I'm sure that Ruth and Kevin will enjoy Ecuador as much as I did although I never made it to Galapagos.

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    2. After Guayaquil we will head to Baños for a few days and then back to Quito, so a trip to Cuenca is not in our plans. We are definitely keeping a close eye on the situation down there and we are hoping that we won't have any big issues. It certainly will be an interesting visit.

      Thanks Chris, we will definitely be avoiding the problem areas as much as we can. We always say that we like adventure and it looks like this trip is going to be just that. Our fingers are crossed that it doesn't end up being more than we bargained on.

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  4. let us know how it is there as we are flying there in Nov. Good luck!

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    1. You can be certain of that, it will all be in our blog posts. Hopefully things will have calmed down and back to normal by the time you arrive in November.

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  5. Just read a missionary report from Ecuador, dated 10/9 -- they were less than hopeful that things would calm down quickly, although they're still there (Americans have not been told to leave yet) and things were reasonably calm in the smaller cities. They said gas prices had risen considerably, since those subsidies were removed -- and the government had moved to a smaller, less prominent city for fear of being overthrown.
    That doesn't sound too good in my book. You should keep a careful eye out, especially the next few days. But you're careful, anyways -- I'd go.

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    1. We are a go, the only thing that may change our mind is if the Canadian government puts out an "Avoid all travel" advisory to Ecuador, only then will we rethink our situation.

      It is definitely not an ideal situation but we are keeping a very close eye on what is happening down there, it will certainly be quite the adventure now, Life is never boring in our books. lol!

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  6. We will closely follow you on this trip. We are keenly interested in the politics of the area as we were exploring the possibility of perhaps moving there. These newest developments are disquieting but perhaps are only a hiccup in an otherwise stable country. Hope you have a great trip. Cory & Elaine

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    1. It has been a very stable country up to this point, I guess it will be a game of wait and see.

      You can be guaranteed that we will be writing posts about how this situation affects or possibly doesn't affect our travels in Ecuador.

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