yesterdays sun remained hidden behind a layer of thick clouds all day, reminidng us that it is stilll Winter in Ecuador.
We had another productive day looking at rentals (nothing great but they were furnished for $600 and $700 with really nice bathrooms and a great rooftop deck that overlooks the Tomybamba river).  We also spent some time at the notary completing limited power of attorney docs for the Gringovisa group to use on our behalf. We also got a local cell phone (Samsung galaxy s3 mini for $185 with case and minutes). And we got our Supermaxi (the local Safeway) cards and used them shopping. Good day that.
Now from the 'Things I Never Wudda Thunk To Ask About' column, we flew one way from Seattle to Denver to begin this leg of our trek. There were two classes of travel offered on this flight, first class and the bleachers. We chose the latter attempting to save money. Checking in for our flight with five bags to check, we discover that being in the cheap seats entitles us to one free bag each and the others will cost us denaro. As it turned out $270 far more than we paid for our air fare. Now flying from Denver-Huston-Quito, we went premiere class (all first class amenities including no lines for check in or boarding, food, drink and cozy seats). The best part was our checked bags were included in the fare.
None of our tales would be complete without a hitch though so here it is. During the 'hot months' many of the larger cities in South America have a baggage embargo. No more than two checked bags per person. Quito of course is one of these cities. So the nice lady at the premiere check-in counter says "no problem, you just take the smallest bag with you to the gate and they will tell you it is too big to carry on and they will gate check it into the regular baggage). And so indeed did it go.
Flying from Quito to Cuenca with the same bags, we were charged for 46.5 extra kilos and had to fork over a grand total of $60.
The end.