Leaving Ecuador

I went over to German's café and he made dinner for us. His girlfriend came along later and then we went to a bar owned by a friend of his. It wasn't open to the public that day but a few of us sat round a camp fire outside it, talked and sang Ecuadorian songs. They also took turns playing the guitar, even though none of them could play it at all. It made it all very funny to listen to.

The next morning, it was time to leave so I had breakfast and went to Quito. I had plenty of time to make it to the airport so tried taking a trolley-bus there as it was much cheaper than a taxi. However, it took forever so I got off about half way and took a taxi the rest of the way. I dreaded going through immigration and so on because of the potential payments I expected to pay. The lowest amount I'd heard one has to pay to leave the country was $35. I had about $100 with me just in case but when I when through check-in without any problem, I went to immigration and the woman looked through my passport, stamped it and let me through. I didn't pay anything which was a nice surprise.
I waited for the plane while reading Mein Kampf and my name was called out at the desk. I didn't know what could be wrong and a few of us had to have our luggage checked. I had nothing that I shouldn't have so stayed calm and the policeman had a quick look and said it was fine. He said it was just routine to check some bags.
We had to fly to Guayaquil first and some passengers left or got on but we had to wait for over an hour to leave again. My connection time in Madrid was less than 3 hours if we got there on time and this wasn't looking likely. However, I could only hope the pilot picked up some speed. I read some more and they turned the lights out at 12.30am. I managed to sleep quite well and apart from a few changes of position, I slept through till breakfast at 7.45am, or now 1.45pm - Madrid time. That was good as there was only an hour and a half left so I didn't have to suffer on either long flight. Expect when we landed, I was struggling for time. When I finally got my bag then found the check-in desk, the woman said it was too late to get on the flight at 16.50. I went to the information and managed to get on a flight two hours later which wasn't too bad. It got into Heathrow at 8pm and I got back to Wolverhampton at 1.03am. It was later than hoped but at least I didn't have to stay somewhere overnight.
The next day, I woke up at 2pm! Partly due to the time difference and partly due to not having slept much over the last week.
I'll also post some other notes about Ecuador over the next week or so.