We're sitting in the hostel waiting for when we take a taxi to the bus station. With not much to do today, as the clouds are hanging low and all the mountains surrounding us have disappeared, we decided to go to the American Embassy and register.

Why you ask?

One one of our travels we met a lady who worked in an embassy in one of the African countries and she told us to always register with each country we visit. Then if "something" happens, they can help us easier, and so forth. She was quite adamant very persuasive--said that was the whole reason for consulars, etc.

You can register online, but we wanted to see what it would be like to go. It was a bit anti-climatic tho. Guards nearly ran me down when I tried to take a picture. Bad plan evidently. Terrorists, you know. He stood by us like glue afraid I'd try a sneaky while another guard made a call to find out what the heck to do with us. I promised I wouldn't take any pictures--even took the chip out of the camera and put it in my pocket--see, no pictures and I waved my innocent hands and smiled big.

After being shuffled back and forth a bit, the second guard took us to a third guard ( I still had my private armed escort) who spoke to a fourth who scurried into the consulate and came back with a web address. Register online, he said.

So the cab ride there was just for fun, but it did give us another look at the city. Wow. Quite impressive. Quito is about 2 1/2 million people squashed into a snake-like meandering down a narrow valley and up the sides of the mountains anywhere they can gain a foothold.

We're anxious to get to warm weather, as we haven't had our sweatshirts off since we got here. This morning we went over to the main office of the school we'll be attending in PL and paid them the cash we'd been carrying, as we didn't want a bunch of money on us while riding a night bus.

I asked about the safety issues of riding buses and we were warned the regular stuff like check your larger bags and keep the ticket. But also stuff like, even when you go to the bathroom take your hand luggage, backpacks etc., with you. Never leave them at your seat. Also, when offered water or something to eat always decline. Don't buy food at any of the stops on the way --don't even buy bottled water. Bring everything with you you're going to want. It's a 10 hour 
ride  (if there are no breakdowns) so that means your dinner and drink.

If you leave the bus at a stop, bring everything with you. Course, we've been doing most of that, but the part about not buying food or drink along the way is new. Hadn't heard that before--we've bought food from women selling empanadas etc in both Argentina and Chile and never had any problem. But we never ever leave our stuff unattended, never ever. I always have my camera bag wrapped around my leg so if someone were to try to tug it out from under the seat in front of me, I'd know. We never put our things in the luggage rack above our heads, either.

We had hoped to be taking a bus with NO stops on the way, as we'd heard stories of robbers getting on the buses at night and robbing everyone onboard including the driver. But anyway, our friends said we'd be okay if we just made these precautions.

So, it's off to the beach where we're promised summer weather! Whee!!!