Hello everyone,
We will be in Bonaire in July for 2 weeks. Thinking about taking a puddle jumper (if available) to South America. Any ideas, suggestions? I have no idea how to do it, cost or available transportation.
Thanks, Jeff

My friends have all recently taken KLM to Guayacil and Quito. It was a short flight (leaving both places early in the AM) and they loved it.

Annie, I think they are referring to a much smaller trip. KLM really does not qualify as a puddle jumper! If you are considering a trip to Venezuela, I strongly recommend contacting the US Dept of State for travel warnings. Senor Chavez is not too fond of the US president at this point in time.

Jeff..Mike gave you good advice..We have a frosty geopolitical relationship with Chavez & frankly I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to thaw. If you have an American passport, my advice is to forget it!

Thanks everyone. It looks like I will avoid this excursion!
Jeff

Jeff
The trip to Ecuador could be very nice. The track on KLM is Bonaire-Guayaquil-Quito-Bonaire. It would really have to be a couple of days. Quito is a beautiful and interesting city and the mountains around it are spectacular. When my daughter lived in Guayaquil she joined us in Bonaire a couple of times. I have no idea about the cost.
Mickey

Mickey, thanks for the info on Quito. Can you tell anything more about Guayaquil? Thanks.

just a heads up about Ecuador. its a beautiful country but it has its issues. safety is one of them. we stayed in Ecuador a couple of years ago. we had a wedding. there were armed guards on the roofs of the hotels.walking at night was a no.touring was great but in a fishing village we were told by a machine gun toting man that he was charging for use of public bathrooms. we didn't argue. we traveled by van through many interesting parts of Ecuador with locals and loved the experience but it does require thoughts of safety especially at night,on the roads and in crowds.Quito is interesting as well but there are many street children begging and the pollution from the cars is sometimes overwhelming. despite all this we never regretted our 2 week trip.

Quito, Ecuador is a great place to see. But as Karen said It does have problems to contend with. It's the only place we've ever been that we were tear gassed (due to the local transportation strike). Not Fun. We have never regretted our trips to Quito.

Jeff
I certainly agree in every way with what Karen and Yana have to say. A visit of a week or two would be better than a couple of days. Like all developing countries Ecuador has poverty which leads to begging and theft. Never the less I will miss our many trips there in the past since my daughter and her family moved back to the US. Travel in a rental car is OK but much better of course with someone fluent in Spanish aboard.
Aah-- I'm just having too many good memories.
Mickey

I believe Guayaquil is the closest major airport to the Galapagos. A group of my friends is organizing a trip to the islands and that was the international airport we were to fly to/from.

Hi Nathalie
I was in Guayaquil late September of last year and I was really impressed. It's clean and modern with friendly people. Lots of work on infrastructure and tourism, In the near future tourism to the Galapagos will be severely limited, as they feel the islands are now in a downgraded state.
If you follow the news, the new president, a political brother of Mr Chavez has suggested stricter tourism for the Galapagos. He was also given complete power for I think 90 days just as they did in Venezuela.

I recently passed on to Cynde the article about the Galapagos--I wonder if she still has it?