This morning I got up and from the balcony off our room saw the mountains peeking above the forest of trees too beautiful to describe.  The outline showcases the beautiful valley we are located in. 

The horses at the resort were letting us know they exist and the roosters were saying good morning!  The resort was quiet, a wonderful place to relax and reflect on the adventures of the past and the experiences yet to come.

After having a breakfast of fresh fruit in a milky sauce to which you add granola and have your beverage of choice (mine of course was decaf coffee but my husband had pineapple juice) and fresh baked whole wheat bread toasted the day had officially begun.

We sat on our balcony and read for the majority of the morning, it was delightful to have the peace surround us!  Then I decided it was time to go get a body massage and a facial.  Now, if you truly want to feel pampered you want to have the staff here take you under their wing and do a facial followed by a full body massage.  All of this for a total of $33!!  The facial was scheduled for 30 minutes, but in reality it was an hour of pampering and relaxation.  The body massage was supposed to be 30 minutes too; it was an hour and 10 minutes!  My husband commented that I sure had been gone a long time when I came back to the room, but it was a heavenly break!

We walked down to the pool this afternoon, the pool is tiny, I commented that even I could do 10 laps in a pool that size!  And our grandson could certainly do two widths of the pool without having to put his feet down, it’s pretty small, but very pretty.  It is surrounded by fresh flowers, candles and a small water fountain feeding into it.  As we were sitting there (at the bar area by the pool) we decided to order a pizza.  We asked if we could get served there or if we had to go to the main dining area.  Cristian, our fabulous front desk, cook and everything else person, said not a problem, order and they would serve us at the bar!  We ordered a mixed (?) pizza, not knowing just what we were going to get, but whatever it would b we figured it would be good and we were right.  Lots of cheese and veggies and some meat, I assume was ham but hey, who knows!

As we were sitting there we visited with another guest from Holland.  He is backpacking wherever the mood moves him.  He leaves on Wed. for Peru.  He is taking the bus from Loja and just taking his time going where he feels the need to be.  He said he has been gone for two months now and isn’t ready to go back yet.  He spent a month in Columbia, now Ecuador and off to Peru.  He hiked up one of the mountains yesterday and said it was a tougher climb than he anticipated, so when he got partway there he decided to go back down.  He said the trails were steep and the drops nasty with dirt trails that if it rained would be dangerous.  Not something I would do, shoot, I hate the 42 steps to get to our room!!

Not sure what tonight will bring, we will find out when we go down for dinner and visit with Carol, the owner of the resort.  She is really a neat gal, wild gray hair and all.  Her husband was an actor prior to retiring.  I asked what he had been in and found that he had been on Broadway in a number of plays and was an actor on Hill Street Blues and Dynasty.  He bought his contract out of Dynasty, according to Carol, because he did not like the way Joan Collins treated the other actors and he felt it was worth the money to get away from her.  Now that must have been pretty bad!!  Carol said that the people here in Ecuador recognized him from his Dynasty days…how funny is that??

Last night we went to the conference center with Carol, her husband and some local people and watched "A Street Car Named Desire" with Marlon Brando.  I had never watched it so it was really a kick to sit through a true classic that I hadn’t seen, black and white and all!

The local guy, his name was Pat, was busy telling me that the world is doomed if there isn’t a change in the leadership.  He believes that there is "one with his finger on the button" that wants to bring about Armageddon.  I cut the conversations short and sat down to watch the movie.  This guy has to be 80 with long gray hair, skinny as a rail and teeth that haven’t seen a dentist in awhile, but he thoroughly enjoyed the movie!

Getting to bed was a treat, popped a Tylenol PM and slept like a baby.  The pillows were actually soft enough to enjoy and the room warm enough so you didn’t need 15 blankets!  In Quito it got cold in the room and the beds were heavily blanketed to keep you warm.  I would have been nice had the blankets not weighed more than we did, hard to move around to get comfy…they pretty much kept you locked in one place unless you felt like fighting the weight!

I have taken loads of pictures of this beautiful place, but forgot the cord to load them so they will all have to wait until we get home.