"Dollars! Wow. Really. Man."

It should give you some sense of how prepared we were for this trip that when Lonely Planet Ecuador 2013 was finally purchased (from a groggy 15 yr old in the Quito airport) the fact that Ecuador uses US dollars came as a tremendous shock. Which shock would have been coupled with tremendous relief, had the ATM cheerfully eaten my moneycard.

"Hmmmmmmm. Well that's … huh. Shit."

Eighteen hours in. Add sleep, a shower, lunch. Lauryl is in our room, feet up on the wall, draining the blood back in to the rest of her body after 24 hours of travel. Dinner sounds are beginning to filter through from outside and there's an older texan guy on the couch - I'd guess 70 - curled around his iPad in a shadowy corner of the common room. Most of the lights are off, but his face glows pale and white thanks to the iPad, which he is holding close to more effectively shout at what sounds like his very tired family in Dallas.

"I'm not even going to reply to that question because I would just be repeating myself. There's no reason for me to give up the king sized bed , you and Allie can sleep on it when you get here. Now look, I've already explained all this in detail. And when you're talkin' about this other place it's like you didn't hear me before. This landlady is real nice. I be she wouldn't mind going month to month like that other place. And another thing, this iPad you got me doesn't charge right."

He's been shouting since we got back from lunch, and every so often the french girls or german guy who have rooms upstairs will poke their heads in and disappear back in to the kitchen. It's a weird enough scene to suggest that things are not as they were, and that, dear reader, is very good news indeed.