Yesterday I had breakfast in my favourite bakery in tropical Puerto Ayora where they sell the bread rolls straight from the rack, still hot. Tonight I have already arrived "home" in winterly Buenos Aires. And a few hours ago I had breakfast in "my" kitchen with proper coffee from my Italian coffee maker. This journey was much quicker than I had hoped for, and certainly much faster than I had dreaded - being prepared for possibly having to go all the way from Ecuador to Buenos Aires by bus! That would have taken me more than a week of continuous travel. But I was lucky - when I arrived in Guayaquil yesterday I could book myself on a bearably expensive flight via Lima to Buenos Aires leaving just a few hours later in the afternoon, et voilà - here I am again in the country of totally mad driving. I had forgotten about the latter, but already the taxi drive from the airport made me fully aware of this Argentinian peculiarity, again!
The winter hereabouts turns out to be slightly chilly, at night that is. During the daytime it resembles what in Germany we would happily call a "Golden Autumn" - about 18 to 22 degrees and bright sunshine. Extremely pleasant. It is funny, however, to see the Argentineans walk around dressed as if they expected a Siberian winter! And what a pleasant feeling to be able to blend into the crowds again and not sticking out as the obvious "gringo" for a while.
And then there are real supermarkets, I mean places where you can buy everything! I had already almost forgotten about the existence of these institutions. More than 50 different brands of toothpaste (who needs this actually?!), 80 different types of jam (including my favourite flavour - tomato, yum!), about 300 different kinds of pasta...
In short, I am quite happy to have arrived in Buenos Aires and to be able to take some time to think about all the impressions and experiences of the last four months. It is a shame, there would have been a lot more to see in Ecuador than just the Galapagos Islands, but I feel there is only so much I can take in one trip. I am actually looking forward to a little "break" from travelling. And then I will have to arrange my travels to Australia... But that will probably have to wait a week or two.
