Papers, papers and more papers

We had this wonderful opportunity to go on a free trip to the cloud forest, but since papers that we were to sign weren't ready, we opted not to go. When we were in Guayaquil last Monday we were told on Wednesday we had to go to Manta to sign papers at the bank. Like good clients, we did as we were instructed, but when we got to the bank, there were no papers to sign. So when Friday came and the papers were STILL not at the bank, we decided we had to stay behind. We had Fernando call this morning...only half the paperwork is there, maybe 3:30? I said forget it, we'll go in the morning, so from last Wednesday to Tuesday! The papers are probably in this pile...gotta be Ecuador

But for every bad, there's a good, and this time (as many times) it came in the form of food!

We have a guy on a bike who comes by with a 5gallon bucket with huge shrimp and ice. They call them langostinos which you may know as the spanish word for lobster, but in this case they are really big shrimp. We got 8 to a pound, and $5 a pound.

We pan fried them with their shell on, and tossed with seasoning, cilantro, onions, peppers and lime. They were very good for our first attemp cooking them this way. We will keep trying, as we get more spices and cooking utensils.

Right before we started cooking, Tarzan the Gardner stopped by with more presents! He had banana trees, and what look like cannas, and a couple croton bushes (the yellow gold dust ones, the red ones don't like all the salt). He saw that I had put in the ground cover, and told us that the pineapple we planted wouldn't do well except inside the wall, too much salt. So we'll move those, but it's coming together nicely, another reason we couldn't go away, we have to water all our new plants! 

We both are feeling kinda lethargic today, maybe a little down that we couldn't go on this trip because of stupid paperwork. Which reminds me, we did hear a story about that, I'm paraphrasing-

When the king of Spain sent his men here to South America, he gave them instructions to send all the gold and silver home to Spain, when the shipment arrived many months later, after stopping inVenezuela and other ports it was about half it was reported to have been. The king was furious, and from then on told every person who touched it to sign off, before passing it on to the next, and the next time he got all his gold. (Well he got somebody's gold). So that's part of the problem of paperwork in Ecuador.

We will try a new place for al muerzo today. It's a place called Bamboo and Ceibo, an Ecuadorean man and his Spanish wife, their daughter Elizabeth and his nephew Fernando (another sweet Fernando) are wonderfully gifted at hospitality. We've noticed some of the restaurants have good food, but not any hospitality skills, we appreciate both. They have a brick pizza oven and very good pizza, hamburgers and some other gringo food. From what we've had their flavors are great, so I'm sure their lunch special will be tasty. Try and find Angel our fruit and veg guy on the way home and nap in the hammock, sounds perfect.

Tomorrow will be Manta bus trip, so stay tuned for all the adventure!