Family visitors, Sick Puff-Puff and Hummingbirds

Dear Family and Friends,
 
First of all, thank you to everyone who expressed concern after Chuck posted that I was under the weather.  I was down with a cold for a few days but am feeling just fine now.




A couple of weeks ago, Chuck and I drove to Quito to meet Audrey and Jim, Chuck's sister and her husband. Before heading back to Cuenca we spent a couple of days at Bella Vista.

Bella Vista is located about two hours west Quito.  It is located in the cloud forest.  It is well known to bird watchers because they have so many different species of birds, especially hummingbirds.

It was a first time for all of us but Jim, who spent a few days there about 4 years ago.  He highly recommended that we all visit there since we were fairly close. 

Audrey and I spent one whole day in front of the hummingbird feeders...oohing and aahing.  We were right next to them and they didn't seem to mind at all.  We saw some amazing birds.

Have a look at the different species of hummingbirds.

It might be hard to see, but this bird's tail is about as long as his body.  A fascinating bird.

This guy's wings were flapping so fast, that you cannot see them in this picture.  He was a little bigger than a large honey bee.

We saw other birds as well.

We had a glorious couple of days there.


We headed back to Quito to pick up a piece of Audrey's and Jim's luggage that did not arrive in Quito with them.

About 30 minutes outside of Quito our car, Puff-Puff, started making a funny noise.  We limped in to our hotel in Quito with hardly any acceleration.

Chuck contacted the SsangYong dealer and took Puff-Puff in to be repaired.  Since this was a Friday afternoon, we opted to take a van to Cuenca instead of staying in Quito.

As it turns out, the turbo was bad and had to be replaced.  It took Monday - Thursday to repair. On Thursday Chuck got a call from the dealer that Puff-Puff was all repaired.

Chuck and I flew to Quito Friday morning.  As soon as we got off the plane we took a taxi to the dealership.  Puff-Puff looked so good to both of us. We have been lost without a car.  It has been especially unfortunate because we like to take our guests on a day trip to Gualaceo, Chordeleg, and SigSig.

Now that we have Puff-Puff all repaired we can make that trip on Wednesday before Audrey and Jim have to leave on Thursday.

Alls well that ends well.  Only our pocketbook is suffering.

Love,
Nancy