we are safe and well

Hi all, just to let you know that we arrived safely in Quito, Ecuador on a flight from Houston on the 28th November and we are now staying with Celso´s sister Fabiola, her son, Pablo, and my sister in law Cuma´s two daughters, Rebeca and Karina, who live in the South of Quito.
We managed to find and buy a 4 wheel drive car to take us down to Chile, a 1999 Chevrolet Vitara.
Today we spent 3 hours queuing to get our Cedulas (the Ecuadorian identity document) only to find that I was not in the system and will have to return to Puyo (in the South East of the country) where I got my first cedula. Celso couldn´t get his because apparently the computer did not show our marriage even though we had to get it put onto the system in order for me to get my first cedula back in 1998! The system here is such rubbish. I asked if , because I wasn´t in the system, they could just give me a new number and put that in the system, but they said no they had to find the original documentation even though I had copies of all of them with me - so infuriating. The only reason that I want my new cedula is because it means I can get into all the tourist places at local prices (about 1/20th or less of the tourist price) and also they let you go to some places that tourists are not allowed to go to at all. Ah well!
So we have spent the last few days covering miles and miles in Quito looking for the car and yet again tomorrow we have to take the 2 buses and travel about 1.5 hours to go back to where we got the car because they forgot to get us to sign one of the documents that is needed to get the registration documents into our name. Everything here is so complicated, when we took the money out of the bank to buy the car it took 3 different people 20 minutes just to fill in the paperwork and they wanted to know things like how many children I had, for what reason I can´t even imagine!
We will probably go to Misahualli (where we lived when Tristan was a baby and where Celso´s mum lives) tomorrow after signing the document for the car, then I will be returning to Quito to meet my mum at the airport who arrives next Tuesday to stay with us for Christmas and explore Ecuador with us. It´s all go for us but not very interesting to write about!!