Puertolago – 5/6/2013
May 9th, 2013 by rallyadmin
We’re trying to get insurance for Colombia before we get into Colombia. We may be able to get it at the border but we’re hoping to get it out of the way before we get there. In order to do that, we’re going to stop in Quito to look up a Mapfre office that we’ve found using a Google search.
The road is still rainy and the clouds are low enough so we can’t see much and, if anything, there’s even more traffic than last night. On the way to Quito, it starts raining even harder. This just makes matters worse.
The GPS map set we’re using doesn’t seem to know that there is a place know as Quito when you try to give it a specific address to navigate to. It finds the city of Quito just fine. Addresses? Not so much.
We try Google Maps on the phone and by the time it figures out where we are and where we want to go, we’re miles in the wrong direction. And the layout of Quito makes matters even worse. Quito is a huge city layed out in a series of hiulls and valleys. You can be just over a hill from where you want to go, but you have to go miles to get there.
We eventually get to the address we’re looking for but that Mapfre office doesn’t sell the insurance we need. They give us another address and we’re back following Google Maps to an address that doesn’t exist. We wander about a bit and then John parks and I walk looking for the street address. I can’t find it but a police man tells me that the address is a few blocks down the street.
We drive down the street trying to see the address plaques on the houses and we still can’t find the address. The address is also given as an intersection and we still can’t find it. Until we go just a bit farther and we see a bright red Mapfre sign on a brand new building. No wonder the printed address and the building don’t match.
Inside, we meet with a very nice woman who speaks English quite well. We explain what we’re trying to buy she says that they can help us. Great. She and another you woman spend the better part of an hour typing and calling. At the end they tells us that they can’t sell us what we’re looking for. Really? An hour to figure that out? She does find us another company that will, however, and she get’s us the answer and even enters it into Google Maps for us.
We head down the boulevard and cross the Panamericana looking for the new address. WE get to the address and it’s a broken down old building that certainly doesn’t house the QBE insurance company. I ask a woman at a gas station for directions and she tells us that we’ve passed it and I remember seeing a sign for QBE as we came out the boulevard. We head back and it’s the right address and the right company. A big fail for Google Maps.
Enter the underground garage, pass a few heavily armed security officers (I never thought that insurance companies were such good hold up targets), sign in, get a security badge to run the elevator and head for the office that sells SOAT, the insurance we’re trying to buy.
Of course, this is right in the middle of lunch so there’s no one in the SOAT office. We wait. Oh, maybe 15 minutes, and then a flood of identically dressed corporate office drones all return from lunch. They settle in, finish their conversations with thir lunch mates, plop down in their desks and call the Spanish version of “Next”.
We ask the girl if she speaks English. She doesn’t but she runs off to find some one who does and promptly hands us off to another girl who speaks English very well. She looks at our Mapfre policy that we bought in Peru and then makes some calls. Bad news: no they can’t sell us the type of insurance we want for a short term.
They can sell us a full comprehensive policy covering everything up to and including earthquakes (terra-moto in Spanish, a very cool word) but it cost over $500 US. Thanks, but no thanks. Back to the car. It was a good idea and we gave it the old college try. Hopefully, things will be different at the border in Colombia.
The only good thing to happen all day is that the rain has stopped. Occasionally we get some sunshine through the low overcast layer. I guess seeing the high Andes isn’t going to happen on this trip. Back on the Panamericana headed north.
We wanted to make Tulcan, Ecuador tonight but it’s already 5 and we’re at least a couple of hours away and it’ll be dark by the time we get there. I’m driving and John spots a sign for a hosteria (resort) on a little lake at the foot of a volcano. After the serious dive we spent last night in, we need a decent place. And we’re exhausted.
The resort, Puertolago, is just gorgeous. It’s right on the water of this little lake and faces the flank of the dormant (I hope) volcano on the other side of the lake. They have rooms, actually small log buildings with beautiful rooms with a big double window facing the lake and the volcano. Plus a very good restaurant. They even have 4 alpacas grazing on the grass behind the buildings.
The stay is as nice as we thought and hoped it would be. And the place is empty. We never do see they top of the cloud wrapped volcano. But the dinner is very good, the weather looks like it might be clearing and the beds are very comfy.
Obi-wan