finally the papers are done!

Hoorah.
Finally on Monday the computer system in the Transit Police was up and running, but with a huge backlog of papers they warned us not to go until the following day. So Tuesday, after I had taught a couple of lessons in the school, off we went to finally get the papers for the car done. We had to pay the taxes for 2010 which meant half an hour queueing in the bank but apart from that the whole process was quite simple. And so, at last, we are able to leave the country and continue our journey south into Peru.
We decided to take one last trip down the river on the Wednesday; we drove the car along a dirt road down the river to within about a 5 minute boat ride of the rescue centre and then spent a good couple of hours at the centre. It was a great way to spend our last day in the jungle.
After much humming and harring we have decided to head south by heading north to Quito and then over to the coast. It is all rather a round about way but we made our decision based on news reports of the volcano, Tungarau, at Baños which has been erupting for the last few day and sending ash over about 100 sq miles of roads that we need to travel along (if we went that way). So, on Thursday we got up early and packed up the car and drove to Quito, only 4.5 hours this time, the car is running much better after her tune up and we know the road like the back of our hands!

Strange to be on the move again but we should be in Peru in a couple of days!