My friends are trying to get a hold of me and I have not been responding much because I was overwhelmed and a little scared. This will be a long read so I'm sure most of you will not read it but I will try to explain. When I booked my flight to Ecuador it was last summer and there was no talk of any corona virus then. Air Canada had a sale on for $600 return Sault Ste. Marie to Quito Ecuador return. I just couldn't pass it up. It was a tough winter last year and I was not looking forward to it again. The doctor recommended that I take some time off to heal. I was loaded up with prescriptions and gladly went on my way. When I flew down to Ecuador in January, there were no cases of the corona virus in Canada or Ecuador that we knew of. A month later there were two people dead in Ecuador. Two weeks later we've got 1049 people with the virus and 27 deaths. Canada has 2590 with the virus and 27 dead. Not really great odds.
I am in a beautiful comfortable condo unit on the ocean with a pool and my brother Gary from Halifax. He was to fly out April 13th. I was to fly out May 2. But Air Canada cancelled all flights in March and April saying they will start again in May. That means I am ok to fly maybe unless they cancel flights again. Nobody knows anything really. So last week Gary's flight was cancelled as well as 8 other Canadians in our building. Not mine yet. Of course we are all in panic mode. I won't go into details here.
We all registered with ROCA for Canadians who are travelling abroad, and at the Canadian Embassy in Quito. We receive regular emails from them which is nice. We are told that Canadian government is working with Air Canada to get us home. Oh happy day. One problem. It will cost $855. Plus fees and taxes so will end up around $1200. One way Quito to Toronto. Then apparently we may have to stay 2 weeks in a Toronto Hotel to quarantine. Not sure what food we will be eating. And then I looked up what a flight from Toronto to the Soo is now and it is $385 if you have no luggage and $680 with 2 - 50 lb pieces. Do I throw all my clothes away. Wow. What happened to my $600 return ticket I bought that included 2 bags. Thanks Air Canada. Then we receive the email the evening of the 23rd. that there is a flight on the 25th. That was not much notice. It is the 25th now. We are at least a 10 hour drive from Quito. There are no buses, no taxis, no domestic flights. We cannot get there. It doesn't matter much because the flight was sold out in 5 minutes apparently.
Then we are informed that there will another flight on the 27th. Ah hah, maybe we can make that one and we spend hours, at least 6 hours on line trying to find transportation for 9 people. There are only a few drivers that have permission to cross provincial lines here. A good friend was here visiting when lockdown happened and had to get home to Esmerades about a 6 hour drive up the coast. She managed to get a ride with family. A relative came to the wonderful hospital we have a half hour away in Porto Viejo. Our friend is a nurse and she accompanied this woman on the road back. There were stopped 10 times on the way home at military checkpoints. It took them 10 hours. They were lucky they went yesterday as the curfew has now been changed. We are only allowed out of our units from 5 am to 2 pm. They would not have been able to go. Oh yes, forgot to mention that if you are travelling you must get a special travelling document called a salvoconducto from the government which you can do online with your passport number. And the driver needs a special form for a commercial vehicle stating your flight number and date.
To add more difficulty to driving, drivers with even licence plate numbers are allowed to drive on certain days and uneven on the other days. Wow. One group gets to drive 4 days a week and the other 3 days. Doesn't seem fair, but I totally understand the government trying to let people travel but to stop the spread of the virus. I trust the measures the government here is placing. It makes me feel safer for sure. They are doing for everyone's health and the Ecuadorians are very compliant. I like that. On the other hand some of the gringos basically do what they like and don't like to follow rules. That is another story.
An American friend had a paid flight last night out of Quito. He needs to go back for his health. My brother worked for hours trying to get him a ride and was unsuccessful. He could not make the flight. Thankfully we had our drivers set to take us to Quito but we still had not received the codes from the embassy that we need to book the flight with Air Canada. We were checking our email all day every 5 minutes. By the evening I was exhausted with the stress of it all. Made some dinner and sat down to watch, The Shack on Netflix. It is a most inspiring movie in this stressful situation.
Well the code came in and that flight was sold out in half an hour. We were told by the guy in charge of the drivers that the new curfew also applies to them. Now that is going to make transportation to Quito incredibly difficult. The drivers would be coming from Quito and driving us back to Quito. So they would have to leave at 5 am, 2 days before because of the odd/even numbers. Stay somewhere safe here for 2 night, leave with us the day before the flight at 5 am to get back to Quito before 2 and not sure if we could even make it in time. Emotions are going up and then they are going way down. Kind of like a bad sugar rush.
Our only hope now is the Canadian consulate has sent an email that they will arrange for a domestic flight from Manta, which is only an hour away and in the same province so we could get a taxi, and it would be an hour flight to Quito. We are anxiously awaiting news on this. Maybe it will be arranged before the next flight which is possibly the last one on the 31st. My problem is I still have a flight booked on May 2nd. I would love to stay if I knew I could fly on May 2. But no guarantees it won’t get cancelled.
That is my dilemma. I feel more protected here. I feel safe, but much stressed with all of this. And it is lovely here and I can swim in my pool. I am afraid that if I cancel my May 2nd flight that they will not give me any refund on the 31st if I was so lucky to get one. But then it is only money. Of which I don’t have much of seeing as I am self-employed and cannot work. Someone told me to apply for that $5000 loan the Canadian government is giving out but I was told if you have access to a credit card that you cannot get it. My credit card has a small amount available to me but it is at a rate of interest of 25 per cent. Don’t like to use that.
So everyone is asking me what is going on. I’m telling you, I don’t know from one hour to the next. Everything is changing and from what I understand this is happening everywhere in the world. Perhaps it is to teach us the importance of being in the moment. We are so used to planning out our lives. Maybe we have to put it into the creator’s hands and trust. I feel stress more now than any other time of my life. I can feel the physical effects. It could be the effects of the brain injury making me aware of it. I can feel the mandibular glands in my neck swell. My neck tightens up. I feel sick to my stomach. My eyes hurt, cannot stand noise. Just want to be quiet. One part of me wants to drink alcohol and just forget about it all. The other part of me just wants to drink water and heal. I don’t know what I am doing.
I think if I can let go of the control, just trust, try to laugh, let it go, whatever will be will be. Take some deep breaths. Meditate. Get off the internet. Please don’t worry for me people at home. Protect your own health. You can call me on messenger if you must, but if you do, please don’t ask me what is going on because I don’t know and I am so tired of that question. It just frustrates me. Tell me some jokes, make me laugh. Don’t tell me bad things going on, I don’t want to know. Stay away from negativity. Turn off the news.
If you have to go out, wear a mask. It’s not to protect you. It won’t, but if you had the virus and don’t know, it protects others. So it encourages others to wear a mask. They may have it, and then it protects you. But if everyone walks around not wearing a mask, no one wants to wear one and that is how it is spreading. Suck it up. You look stupid, it’s hard to breathe, but you can take it off when you are in your own car and when you get home. You should be home anyway. Just use it when you are in public. Down here if you are not wearing a mask, people look at you with anger and I understand. I am sure they are thinking, stupid Gringo. Let’s respect others and do it. Groceries and prescriptions can get delivered. I know some people are getting stressed because they cannot walk. There are a lot of videos showing you how to do workouts on the stairs. A couple of women were doing that here today.
Okay just had a time out to go to the bank with my neighbour to get some money out. Got a ride there and back, wore my mask. Hate it, fogs my glasses up but got to do what you got to do. I pulled it down when I wasn’t around anyone and just pushed my glasses up while I was walking so I could see a bit. I had to wait awhile for others at the bank machine. Then had to go pay some bills for the condo inside. The sign on the bank said the new hour were closing at 1.30. It was around 11.45. As I tried to go into the bank , a woman was locking up. I am banging on the door, she is yelling “Cerrado, cerrado.” Closed. I am pointing to the sign, “No” I say but she just shook her head and walked away. Oh ya, I had to have another little break down. Teared up again.
I forgot the hand sanitizer and used the bank machine. Came home , looked at my phone, typed on my computer. Was sitting touching my face looking at the computer and thought, OMG, I was just touching metal surfaces and the pin pad that everyone is touching and I didn’t even wash my hands when I got home. Crap. Now have done that and put hand sanitizer on my phone and my computer. Wow hard to remember all this crap but I am trying.
Well, not sure if I will get home or not. I am still trying to contact Air Canada and the Canadian Consulate here. I am trying to get home but I am not stressed if I don’t get home. It is a wonderful place to be and I do feel safe. They have free health care here and a fantastic hospital half hour away. So chow for now. Hasta luego.
