November 30, 1997 Ibarra/Otavalo, Ecuador - {Hotel Imbabura, Hostal Maria} We heard of a Swiss owned cafe where they made their own cheeses and we decided to stop there for breakfast. Unfortunately they closed the cafe that day for a personal holiday and so we back tracked the 10 blocks it took us to walk there. Today, we planned to go to Otavalo, which is famous throughout the country for it's market. Indians from all over come to this town to trade. Apparently this has been going on since Inca times. We got a late start going to Otavalo. By the time we were parked and had our bearings it was 2:00pm. We had some lunch, and then explored the town heading towards the market. We passed by an art gallery where we saw some incredibly cool metal statues created by a local artists. They were animated sculptures of the good demon/spirit Uma. We spent a long time checking these out picking out some and having them packaged for shipment back home. By the time we were done, it was past 4:00, and beginning to rain. The market was pretty much over. We hung out in shops around the market waiting for the rain to let up. Since our rain gear was in Ibarra, and we didn't have any clean dry clothes to change into, we weren't keen on riding in the rain. Hotel prices in Ecuador, are so cheap that even though we already had a room in Ibarra, we decided to spend the night here in Otavalo. We found a nice new (2 month old) hotel on the same level as one might pay $60 back home for, for S15,000 (US$3.50) per person. I believe the price for this hotel was unusually low because it just opened. It was much nicer for the same price as other places in the area. In the evening, we explored the town. December 1, 1997 Ibarra, Ecuador - {Hotel Imbabura} We had a nice breakfast of banana pancakes with wonderful strong dark Colombian coffee, guaranteed to give non-caffeine junkies caffeine jitters after one cup. Like many of the traveller eating establishments along the traveller route, in Central and South America, and even in SE Asia, they played Bob Marley's "Legend" album which is a "Best Of" collection of his Reggae music. I own this album, and like it, but after the 50th time hearing the album in 6 months, I'm ready for something else... We spent the day shopping.. thick hand knit wool sweaters which sell on average for S55,000 ($12.80), hand woven rugs, wood carvings. It seems all of the female Otavalo indians dress in traditional outfits which consist of a dark blue lungee like skirt, a white blouse, many gold colored chain necklaces, and some times a folded dark blue cloth worn on their head like a hat for shade. All of the Otavalano male indians wore small brimmed felt boler hats. Little old otavalano indian woman would come up to foreigners on the street with a big sweet grin, and their hand out. Old woman were the only people asking for money we saw in this area. We stopped in Cotacachi, a town 5 miles North of Oatavalo famous for leather. Wow, what a find. there are probably fifty stores selling various leather goods, almost all export quality. We stopped in one with the motorcycle tank pannier. We hadn't been able to use it since, one side was stolen in San Cristobol, Mexico. In this shop I asked where I could have a pair of leather ones made. The clerk/owner said right here. She said she would make a pair exactly the same, but in black leather for S150k ($35), and that they would be ready by 2:00pm tomorrow. Wow! I couldn't buy these in cordura for less than twice that price. We gave her a deposit, and then left before the threatening rain clouds dumped on us. We ate dinner at Mr. Peter's again. They brought popcorn as an appetizer, and then served us a margarita pizza where we dumped on the oregano. December 2, 1997 Otavalo, Ecuador - {Hostal Maria} We tried the Swiss owned cafe in Ibarra again called Cafe FloralP. This time it was open, and it was well worth the trouble we had getting there. They make all of their own cheeses and have an excellent selection. They make mozzarella, camembert, cheddar, holland, goudha, Parmesan, cream cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, various ice creams. Other than mozzarella, these cheeses are hard to find in Latin America. They had some European style salami hanging up that was made in Quito. Sharon suggested we convert one of the top boxes into a portable refrigerator so that we could stock up on some cheese. We bought a wheel of camembert, and a couple small salami sticks for dinner tonight. It rained all morning, which we waited out in our hotel room. Around 2:00, it started to let up, and we checked out and drove back to Cotacachi to pick up our custom made leather tank bags, and then on to Otavalo where we planned to stay for the night. In Cotacachi, the clerk/owner told me that she didn't have the black leather needed to make the bag. It had to be bought from Colombia, and she wouldn't be able to get it until next week. Of course, she couldn't tell me this yesterday when I contracted this. I was stunned that in this town finding leather to do the work would be a problem. Having recently developed a well exercised tolerance for dealing with nincompoops, I didn't vent any anger or frustration since of course this would be pointless, took the bag and the deposit and left. I looked around for another place I could contract this out to. There were 50 or more stores in the area, and it was obvious now I'd have to be more careful choosing. We took off, with the intention of returning in the morning. A quick perusal of the stores said that we had to return since there were so many cool leather things to buy. For dinner we picked up a bottle of '93 San Pedro's Gato Negro. It was a nice Lontue Chilean cabernet table wine after it opens up. Sharon picked up a load of wonderful basil covered garlic bread from a nearby Italian restaurant. The camembert, salami, and garlic bread went excellent with the wine. That with some good Western music we picked up on the radio, we had a wonderful dinner in our hotel room. While we were eating, the hotel clerk knocked on our door. When I opened it up, standing next to him where two Australians who introduced themselves as Leo Arundell and Christine. Leo had spotted our bikes, and asked the hotel clerk who they belonged to. Leo was a motorcycle world traveller. He had started travelling the world on his '88 Yamaha Tenerre back in '88, and has been travelling off and on since. Recently he took off 3 years to save up some money. We talked for a little while, and then agreed to get back together for a drink later that night. About 8:00pm, Leo and Christine came back and we went out had some beers talking until about 11:30pm. We exchanged stories, and tips. He told us about Africa and we told him what to expect in North and Central America. He told us stories about Zaire that we hadn't heard before. While everyone talks about pot holes that can hold two semis, and corrupt officials, Leo told us about bribes at gun point. Where bribes are suggested to be paid on the order of $100 -$1000. Upon refusal, usually one is shot in the foot first before any fatal shots are fired. We swapped tire stories. He says he gets 20k miles on Yokahama 969 front tires with good traction. He told us a rumor he had heard from another traveller about putting a strip of leather in the front tire to prevent tube punctures. He didn't have first hand experience. Apparently travelling less than 60mph, it didn't interfere with performance, and might be something to remember in Africa. December 3, 1997 Otavalo, Ecuador - {Hostal Maria} The other day when we stopped in DHL, we noticed an AT&T dedicated phone booth, next to an electrical outlet which is just what we need to do an E-mail exchange. It's been almost two months since our last fix, and we are currently starving. There are several phone systems (I've counted three so far), none of which I've been able to dial the AT&T access number for. The public phones require a pre-paid phone card, but it must be for the phone company that the public phone belongs to. I picked up the AT&T phone in the DHL office. The phone automatically dialed the AT&T access code, and then through the static on the line, I could hear a voice in Spanish saying it was out of service. bummer... We went to Cotacachi. We spent 6.5 hours looking over the various leather goods among the plethora of stores. Many of the stores have similar products with slight variations. Jackets, shirts, pants, luggage, brief cases, toiletry bags, saddles, belts, boots, shoes, etc. are found in many stores. All approximately a third of what one would expect to pay back home. With most being of very high quality. All of the products are made in Cotacachi. Many of the businesses are more than willing to take a pattern and make whatever. If one wanted to start up a leather business back home, a little capital, some sense of style and a business frame of mind would get one started. This is nothing new to Cotacachi. It's obvious from the inventory here that buyers of foreign stores come here to buy products. Leather jackets, and shirts made of styles that would sell in the US sold here for $35-$40. I would expect to pay at least three to four times this back home for the same. Someone who could draw up a pattern or bring a prototype could have some unique products mass produced. We have been several places along the way where we've found excellent export opportunities. The only problem I currently see is finding a distribution channel back home. In Otavalo, there are stores with stacks of hand knit wool sweaters. They're obviously not on display for tourists although tourists are welcome, but rather set up for bulk exporters. While these warm, heavy hand knit sweaters are cheap (S50k-US$11) and nice, obviously they don't have the same quality assurance as the commonly found machine knit ones do, and styles and patterns must be discerned by one privy to a fashion future sense. If one wanted to set up an Indian crafts shop. Chichicastanango, Guatemala would be the place to buy for Mayan crafts, while Otavalo, Ecuador would be the place for Andean/Incan. rugs, decorative woven fabrics, wool blankets, wool sweaters, and possibly decorative cultural artifacts would be the products from these places. For leather products, Cotacachi could fill a leather shop. As far as shipping, in Otavalo there are several export shipping agencies that will ship around the world. 100 kilos to Chicago for US$150-US$370 depending on the agent. (100kg minimum). There are a few international exporters for Guatemala at Lake Atitlan. DHL has an office in both places for rapid shipping. We bought some large duffel bags (1'x2'x1'), and a beautiful leather valet bag for carrying suits. All 3-4 times less than I would expect to pay back home. A curious thing, is that many of these places are willing to negotiate very little on prices. Also, price for a credit card purchase is always 10-11% higher. We ended up paying in US cash since we didn't have enough Sucres and got a decent exchange at 4250. Just about any major credit card is accepted in almost all of the stores. We found a place to make the leather saddle bags. They were a well stocked store which produced their products there, and assured me that they had all of the raw materials in stock. They wanted S160k ($37) for the pannier set. December 4, 1997 We ate breakfast at a restaurant which faces the main tourist oriented market and has large glass windows so that one can people watch as one eats. Mostly we saw Otavalano indians wearing traditional clothes setting up. Just then two missionaries walk by. They're easily spotted since they are the only young caucasians in latin america that are clean cut, wearing short sleeve white oxfords shirts, ties, dress pants, dress shoes, and usually a small day pack, or a huge honkin hard case suitcase to carry all of their pressed white shirts they'll need for their stay. Today, a local Ecuadorean saw them through the window of the restaurant, stands up and gives them an overly friendly wave, taunting them with a sarcastic "good morning my friends". Looking unsure, they gave him the benefit of the doubt and returned the greeting. Today, the local newspaper reports that the mormons were building a 276 million sucre ($65,000) church in Peguche, Ecuador. After the second violent protest broke out, the community turned away the church and the significant economic boost that the construction money would have added. Most of the people have long been converted to Catholicism fused with some old Incan beliefs. When we were in Copan, Honduras, I saw a couple locals with some young missionaries. One of them was wearing "I (heart) Mormonism". In central america, I've seen a couple cinder block tiny rectangular churches with rusty signs saying they belong to the Seventh day Adventists. Some looked abandoned as we drove by. Black Robe, At Play in the Field of the Lord, or The Missionary are excellent movies that I wish every missionary would see before going oversees. Unfortunately they are all tragedies where the indigenous culture and many of the people parish due to good intentioned missionaries. While Sharon did some more Christmas shopping in the market, I spent the morning getting caught up on almost a weeks worth of journal. In the afternoon, we went out into the market together bargaining for more gifts. While looking for a restaurant for dinner, we stopped in one, and met a man who I had seen around town before. I remembered him because his mannerisms were so different from other latin american men. While he sort of looked mestizo, he held his body posture more rigid and seemed more forceful in presence and will. The first thing I understood him to say was "speak Spanish slowly..." I thought he was referring to him talking to us for our benefit, and then he went on to say, "I speak French and Berber". Berber? that was the first time I heard that on this trip. That's the language of the Bedouin desert nomads of North Africa. He then said he was from Algeria, and asked if we spoke French. French had long been swapped out of our brain for Spanish, and we didn't like speaking it anymore, because it now resulted in Frenish often forgetting what was Spanish and French since they're both in that 'other' category in my head. However, listening was different. We told him we knew less French than Spanish. He proceeded to talk to us slowly in French. He use to work in the ministry of information in Algiers, when three months ago he came over here, and is obviously now having a difficult time with Spanish. Algeria is probably one of the most dangerous places in the world to be right now. They've been in a growing civil war for a couple years, and the rebels are carrying out a very effective terrorism campaign since they've proven the point with so much senseless killing that just about anyone is a potential target if they are alive. Since we were standing in front of a map, I asked him specifically where the problems were. He said in the North half, since the South had a lot of ?security? Previous to leaving I had really wanted to cross Algeria before this trend of killing off foreigners and locals started up. We had planned to cross the Sahara through Tamanrasset in Algeria. Although I didn't ask, He proceeded to go into detail telling me which African countries were franco-phone and which ones were anglo-phone. It was obvious language was a big thing on his mind. The restaurant owner showed up to wait on us, and I began talking to her while Sharon continued talking to the Algerian. The name of this restaurant had the word "cuy" in it, and so I asked her if they had cuy. Cuy is an Incan delicacy often served around here, and better known to English speakers as guinea pig. She said no, she didn't serve it here. She wrinkled her nose, and told me that she didn't like it. I asked her if it tastes like chicken? She said no. I couldn't think of the word for rabbit, and so asked if it was like cat which I have never tried but heard is similar to rabbit. She said no, it's more like rat. I lost my basis of comparison there, since, _to my knowledge_, I have never been served rat. Since she looked more mestizo than Incan, I don't think she was brought up eating cuy. She told me that during the Saturday market, it's common to find it around here.... Sharon was covertly tugging on my pant legs. This was my clue that the overbearing nature of the Algerian guy was getting to her and she wanted help getting out of conversation with him and get out of there. I looked over, and he had a big overly friendly grin on his face as he spoke to her. A familiar sight from when we travelled muslim countries and Sharon spoke to Muslim men by herself with her blond hair exposed. We went next door where they had a pleasant atmosphere, nice menu, and very friendly owner. After she found out we were from Chicago, she told us how much she loved Chicago because of the Chicago Art Museum, Art Institute and tall buildings such as the Sears Tower. She had recently visited her brother in Chicago for two months. Her Spanish was very easy to understand. She spoke slowly and clearly as if she was quite familiar with the difficulties for non-native speakers. I got the impression that she spoke English though she only spoke to us in Spanish. After we ordered our food, the Algerian came by. He walked around both of these restaurants as if he owned them, or worked there. Since both restaurants had some Arabic appetizers (hummus) we weren't sure what his association was. Later in the evening, off in the distance, we heard the owner saying to her friend in a loud deep laughing voice, "speak Spanish slowly, I only speak French". She was obviously making fun of the Algerian. Given her apparent good nature, I assumed he must have been getting on her nerves too. December 5, 1997 We picked up our custom made tank panniers. They did a beautiful job. Two lined thick leather panniers made with excellent skill and quality in only two days. Incredible! They're beautiful, and for only S160k ($37.20) for the pair. They look too nice to put on the dirty bike. It was on the tip of her tongue for the owner of the store to ask for more money saying that they were much more work to make than she anticipated. Before she got it out, I told they weren't quite right and would need some modifications. and countered with a barrage of questions. She never did ask for more money, and in truth, they were perfect. I later asked how much she would charge for 100 pairs, She said S150k ($34.88), and 15 days. Down the road, I went to a family oriented leather manufacturing shop off the main road, and asked the same thing. After careful consultation with all family members, and some calculating, I was told S120k ($27.90) and 3 weeks. Workers don't work on Sunday, Christmas or New Years. Thick black leather used in the tank panniers comes from Colombia, and may be difficult to get from Dec 20-Jan 1st. Other leathers, including belt leather is local. Many of these places will take fax orders. Pan Atlantic, or Roman Cargo will pick up the products, and then ship them (min 100kg) overseas. Fax order in, arrange half payment to manufacturer and shipper, and remaining is paid on delivery. I'm amazed at how cheap, fast, and skilled these people are. Makes me think of doing an import business... (not seriously) However, I noticed that my leather palmtop case is made in Mexico. Naturally, it would be a good idea to check out a NAFTA source for similar quality and price. Although I would imagine before duty and transportation costs are considered, Cotacachi would be cheaper due to labor costs, and closeness of the raw materials. I noticed the fast clips on my bags don't have the US patent notice and numbers like all other fast clips sold in the US. Also, they sell for $.10 per pair here. In the states, I've never seen them for less than $1 per pair. I'm sure products made here would have to have fast clips made by some US patent royalty paying company rather than these no name likely illegal (in the US) brand. December 7, 1997 Otavalo, Ecuador - {Hotel Marie} Changed the engine, transmission, and final drive oil and oil filter in the R100GS. The engine now has Mobil 1 synthetic 15W50, while the transmission has Bardahl 85W90. I had purchased the Mobil 1 in Popayan Colombia, and the Bardahl in Panama city. Fitted the new leather tank panniers on the R80G/S, and removed the dangling right turn signal from the R80G/S. Like the left one back in the Yucatan, the right one just fell. The metal rod seems to develop cracks and from engine vibrations eventually breaks. I had the left one rewelded in Cancun, and will have to do the same now for the right one. December 8, 1997 Sangolqui, Ecuador - {Hotel Sangolqui} DHL opened, and we were over there first thing in the morning with our 29 kilos of things we bought to send back. After boxing up everything the clerk asked us if we could come back later. The electricity was out on this block, and so none of the computers worked which he needed to finish getting the package ready to send. We were asked to come back around 2:00pm. We had already spent almost a week longer here than we intended to waiting for either the leather craftsmen, or DHL to be open, and were not keen on spending another night here. Around lunch time, we ate at the chinese restaurant across the street. When the lights came on, we quickly downed our food and walked over to DHL. The bill total came to $176. This is including the 9 kilo Christmas discount special they gave us. We walked back to our hotel, packed the bikes and headed for Sangolqui. Sharon wanted to stay in Sangolqui, a small town 15km outside rather than driving into Quito, population 1.2 million which potentially could have some bad traffic at this time. We left town and drove along the scenic roads passing through the mountains near several lakes. Tracking seven out of a possible ten satellites at that moment I watched the GPS for the equatorial crossing. The road snaked through an arid canyon pass making it dangerous to take one's eye off the road for very long. The road meandered north and south within a couple minutes of the equator, and then I noticed the GPS switching from North to South latitude coordinates. It was somewhat uneventful. I honked the horn, to let Sharon know that we crossed the equator, since recently the bike to bike communicators were only working such that she could talk to me, and I could only respond with a semi morse code click back. About a quarter of a minute South of the equator, we drove over a white spray painted line on the road where it was written 0 latitude. Near there, was a small pull off point that overlooked the canyon below. It was a difficult place for Sharon to turn around and it was near dusk, so we kept going. Sharon hung out at gas station, while I went off looking for a hotel. I found Hotel Sangolqui. It looked like it would do for the night. I picked up Sharon, The owner explained to me that I should take the downstairs room with our own bathroom because we were nice people. At first I thought he just wanted us to pay for a more expensive place. I wrote off the "nice people" label as blatant flattery. The third time, he said it is noisy upstairs, and sometimes drunk people use the upstairs, and we'd have to share the bathroom with them. I began to think there might be other things wrong with upstairs that he may feel uncomfortable saying. At first I thought it was tacky decorating to have scantily clad topless pictures of women on the hotel room. Realizing that this was an upscale "love hotel", things started to make sense. I suppose the pictures on the wall are for men who can't afford a good looking hooker and need visual help. When we checked in, they turned on some latin upbeat music which blared throughout the hotel. Apparently intended to drown out noises guests might make. To normalize things around here, I removed the satan red and white bedspread with a beautiful giant embroidered heart and interwoven roses, that even on valentines day might make a non latin american gag on the gaudy cliche. I told the hotel owner we wouldn't be needing the loud music. Sharon turned the nailed up pinups so that faced the wall. We left the plastic sheet on under the nice cotton sheets figuring it was protecting us from the cooties below. December 9, 1997 Quito, Ecuador - {Hotel Belmont} We woke up at 5:30am. repacked the bike while surrounded by six barking security dogs that woke up everyone at the slightest disturbance. Fortunately they were all chained up, and several feet out of range. We were in Quito by 7:00am. Quito is a big city. It's nicely situated in a valley surrounded by mountains with the higher points accented with Religion. On one hill overlooking the city is a large angel statue that looks over the inhabitants. On another hill, is a very large European gothic style church. We went to the South American Explorers Club where we had a letter waiting for us. The club exists as a sort of information center for travelling around South and Central America with offices in Quito and Lima. A nice resource for people staying in the area for a while. We had heard from other travellers that their handling of non club members can be a bit rough and distancing, while very receptive and accommodating to members. While restricted in access, our experience was that they seemed very willing to provide information to non-members. Given our itinerary, it wasn't worth it for us to join at $40 per year. I told them about our trip, and about all of the information that I had gathered on how to travel central and South America by motorcycle, and gave them the web address that Tom Magliery was posting it to. They seemed excited, since they are always looking for up to date travel info. I asked for my letter which was waiting there, and wasn't asked for the $40 membership fee for this member only service. After our letter had been sent, I remembered that being an American Express card member, I could have letters sent to me at any of the AMEX office along the way. They told us about some other travellers who had arrived just recently by motorcycle. We left a note for them, should they return, with the address of our hotel. Later we explored the new area of Quito stopping in some of the many camping stores. There are a lot of nice restaurants in the area. We had a little souflaki snack at a Greek restaurant. We found an internet cafe which charged only $5 per hour which is very cheap in latin america. We surfed the internet with descent bandwidth, and checked out our web page that Tom Magliery has been putting together for us. It was the first time we had seen it. Most excellent...We really liked all of the scanned in photos. We decided we're going to have to send him a lot more postcards so that he can scan in the pictures. We downloaded about 14 compressed books onto two floppies we brought. Although I would prefer a paper book any day over electronic form, it's really nice to have some good reading material around, and two floppy disks take up hardly any room. We were very low on sucres, so stopped at some banks in the area looking for an ATM. At Banco Guayaquil, a large bank in Ecuador, their ATM was down, so we went inside hoping to get a cash advance on our visa. Inside stood several armored guards holding shotguns in two hands. Each person coming in was asked the nature of their business in not so pleasant terms, and were directed to the appropriate person. Unfortunately, I don't know the proper Spanish to say "cash advance on a credit card". To most bankers, I just show them the visa card, and they point me to the correct desk. The security guards pointed and said that the ATM is outside, to which we said it's not working. We wanted to speak to a banker anyway to get a cash advance. Since we couldn't state the nature of our business in a form that the shotgun wielding security trained personal could understand, our only course of direction prescribed to us by these guys was to wait for the broken ATM to be fixed. My request to talk to a someone not carrying a gun was denied. While the real problem was my failure to communicate in Spanish, my frustration at the time was focused on the poor business practice of a major bank using not-so-seemingly-bright security guards as receptionists. Rather than dealing with this, we decided it's not worth it and went to another bank down the street. The bank down the street had an ATM, however our ATM cards were not working here at that moment. Inside, they had one security guard sitting at a desk who was polite, and told us that credit card services closed at 3:00pm. We stopped in a climbing outfitter called Safari where I asked about information on climbing Cotopaxi. Cotopaxi is a snow capped dormant volcano near here where organized climbs complete with glacier hiking boots, crampons, ice pick and ropes are made. I was excited at the prospect of doing this. They led groups of up to four people with one guide per two people. It was a two day trip with the first night sleeping at the base camp partly up the volcano. The volcano peak is at 5897 meters (19,460 feet). They said that half the people that sign up don't make it due to not being acclimated to the altitude. The suggested climbing some other mountains in the area first to find out if I was properly acclimated. Sharon was content to stay in Quito while I went off climbing mountains. I left with the intention of climbing Corazon (4788m) or Illiniza (51xxm) first. Since we were so low on local currency, we decided it would be wise to have an expensive meal that we could charge to a credit card. I hate when this happens :-) Quito has many nice restaurants in the new town in the Northern areas. We stopped in a restaurant called La Crepery with a cozy atmosphere, and fire place. We had french onion soup for an appetizer, and then ordered fondue which turned out to be one of the best fondues I've ever had. It was bite size chunks of filet mignon marinated in a rosemary, thyme, and olive oil. It was most excellent when the cooking oil was really hot searing the outside with spices sticking to filet mignon morsel, leaving the inside juicy. The fondue came with three sauces that made the difference. The first was a wonderful mild curry, the second a garlic sauce which was my favorite, and the third a sweet sauce which was Sharon's favorite. We had two bottle of a 1990 Vina Arcada Carbernet from Navarra Spain which the restaurant owner said Diners Club was promoting in Quito during the festival week which was last week. Sharon picked out the black berry start followed with a short honey finish in the cab. We also consumed three baskets of thin sliced crispy garlic bread. We should run out of money more often... December 10, 1997 Quito, Ecuador - {Hotel Belmont} We hung out in our hotel most of the day. Too much wine the night before left me unmotivated to climb a mountain early this morning. Our hotel had a nice hang out area with several umbrella covered tables on the roof allowing for a nice view of the surrounding valley inset city with the beautiful gothic church and overlooking city angel in view. Since we were completely out of clean clothes, we did our laundry using the hotel's washing machine. With the equatorial sun, t-shirts dried in little over a half hour on the clothes line. We had some coffee and bread with butter and strawberry jam for breakfast. We picked up some butter at one of the local stores. They had what looked like a 50 pound chunk of butter sitting on the counter. With a big wooden spoon, they would scoop a portion for us and wrap it in paper for us to take away. In the afternoon, we went to the bank and were successful getting a cash advance on our visa. In the evening, we picked up a bag of tiny potatoes which we intended to boil in salt water and eat buttered up. The smallest bag of salt we could find to buy for our single meal was 2 kilos (4.4 lbs). We used the hotel's kitchen to cook our potatoes. With it we had some garlic salami, bread and a bottle of cabernet. ---- Dave Thompson thompson@pdnt.com www - http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Thompson Net-Tamer V 1.09 Palm Top - Registered