Cuenca, Ecuador: Perceptions, Misconceptions and a Third Look

During our exploratory visit to Cuenca, we wrote a post about "Preconceptions, Misconceptions and New Viewpoints". In January 2014 we updated our thoughts in this post, "Perceptions, Misconceptions and Living Here". I thought it was time for another review so here is "Perceptions, Misconceptions and a Third Look".

1. Noise, pollution and traffic
   We notice the noise less and less all the time, I guess we have adapted to city life. The sporadic building alarm behind our new apartment bothers us the most (well, it bothers Stu).
   
   The traffic hasn't changed much, we still walk a lot as well as take the bus.
   
   Pollution is worse due to the construction for the Tranvia and our new location close to it. We expect 2015 to be the worst since construction will expand into El Centro.
    
2. Conservative dress
   I now feel quite comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt when going out but I have also added more solid color shirts (not blouses) and a couple pairs of Duluth Trading pants. Stu has done the same. We still wear athletic shoes most of the time although I love my Ariat slip-ons for days when I'm not walking a lot.
   
   We are seeing more and more casual dress in the teens, even shorts, so I anticipate the continuing trend towards this as those teens grow up.
    
3. Bad Coffee
   Very rarely do we get served bad coffee here. We love the coffee in the restaurants and love the dark roast beans we get at a local shop, Nucallacta.
    
4. Weather
   We still love the weather here and in our new apartment with almost wall-to-wall windows, even an overcast day doesn't seem gloomy. But we know the weather isn't for everyone. It can be a bit cool at times and of course the temperature FEELS warmer or cooler at times due to the altitude.
    
5. Stray Dogs
   Not much has changed here although there are several more rescue groups for dogs. Cats aren't seen as much...mostly with expats. We have seen more locals treating dogs as pets rather than an alarm system. We sometimes wonder if these are part of the influx of Ecuadorians returning from the US and Spain.
    
6. Finding our way around
   We're doing much better, the addresses make sense to us now and we can finally pronounce most of the street names. Of course, we still never remember the address of places we see...thank goodness we have friends that do!
    
7. Language Barrier
   This will be a continual learning process. Our two weeks of Spanish class helped and we both plan to keep working from our notes and workbooks (as well as using the online resources). I get compliments on my pronounciation, even when I'm not sure what I'm saying. So I guess that's a good thing.
    
8. Safety/Security
   We really don't worry about this, as we've stated before, we use common sense when we are out and about. Since we are now in an 8 floor building, we have security at the entrance 24/7. We still don't go out a lot in the evenings, but then we didn't do that in the US either.
    
9. Graffiti vs Street Murals
   We continue to see new murals around town and enjoy snapping photos of them. They are constantly changing. The tagging type graffiti continues but it also moves. Some of it has an artisitic quality, others, not so much. Part of city life...sigh.
    
10. Street/Road Condition & Pedestrians (Walking)
    Nothing has changed here, it's still dangerous to be a pedestrian and you have to continually watch where you walk as well as watch the traffic. But we have had several folks motion us to cross in front of their cars and we even had a bus driver do so. We thank them gratefully!

What we love about Ecuador...this list hasn't changed from our first post other than the addition of #10. Oh, and the list is in no particular order, that would be hard to do. There is something for everyone here in Ecuador whether you plan to vacation or retire. Give it a try!

1. The People 
2. The Greenery
3. The Climate 
4. The Fresh Fruits & Vegetables 
5. The Lack of Stress 
6. The Little Shops  & Markets
7. The Artisans 
8. The Family 
9. The Country 
10. The Diversity

Needless to say, we still love living here. This year we plan to take a mini-trip every month, out to a surrounding town or tourist attraction. We will continue to expand our Spanish vocabulary (grammar and tense are at the bottom of our list). We see something new and interesting daily, whether from our apartment window or traveling around town. Life is good! C'mon on down for a visit...

Back in Ecuador - Part Two

Continued from Part One in our US Blog....Our Prime Years. So, we arrived safe and sound in Cuenca mid-afternoon on Thursday. The apartment was in great shape and we were happy to be home. We unloaded the footlockers and suitcases before we crashed.

The skies let loose and since we had nothing much available to eat, as soon as the weather cleared we called Fabiano's Pizzeria for delivery. Phew! Good dinner and a good night's sleep.

Friday we started handing out some of the stuff we muled back for friends.

Saturday we headed out to Popacuchu to meet up with some friends and give them their items. We enjoyed a good meal and a great chat for several hours before heading back home.

Today we ventured into El Centro. Why? Cuenca is celebrating it's 194th independence anniversary. Thousands are in town and there are vendors and shows/parades everywhere.

We spent a couple of hours wandering, bought nothing and took a lot of photos. Here are a few thumbnails, click to enlarge or check out the entire SmugMug album.

We had a great day, stopped in for lunch at Magnolia Caffe, took in the art exhibits across the street and then headed home. Life is good!

Cuenca's Birthday and Our Anniversary!

On Friday we celebrated our 5th anniversary quietly. We had lunch with about 20 friends (none of whom knew it was our anniversary, it was just a fun gathering) and then we walked down to Doce de Abril (12th of April) street to check out the paintings for sale. Cuenca was having a long weekend celebration for their 457th birthday.

From a local newsletter:

This area has much more than 457 years of history, although the colonial Spanish named it Cuenca then. There is evidence of hunter/nomad society in the area since 8060 BC, continuing through around 500 AD, when it's generally posited that the Cañari people established Guapondeleg (roughly translated as "land as big as heaven"). Their society continued for centuries (much of it in a matriarchal manner), until the late 1400's, when the Cañari mounted a notably fierce resistance for years to Incan conquest before being "assimilated". The Inca renamed the site as Tumebamba ("plain of knives"). A mere 75 years later, the colonial Spanish settlement of Cuenca was founded, in part lured by the possibility that Tumebamba was the legendary city of gold, El Dorado.

Stu bought two small paintings and I saw several larger ones I liked but wasn't up to spending quite as much as they were asking. Here they are on the bench at the end of our hallway, their resting spot until we find the right wall for them.

While we were there, several fire engines and rescue trucks came roaring past to stop just up the road from us. Stu snapped a couple of photos as we left.

From there we walked back to the other side of the river and revisited the vendors. We were there on Wednesday but they were still setting up. That trip I bought a gorgeous Saguaro made beaded necklace ($12) and a little beaded hummingbird ($5) to hang in the kitchen beside the one I got in Honduras. This trip and I bought another necklace ($12), this one to wear with black tops on dressier occasions.

We tried to snap a couple of photos of the big E that is in the plaza, part of the "All You Need is Ecuador" tourism campaign. Neither of the ones taken with us were that good, the best was the one at dusk. They even had a bouncy climbing wall (with a rope for those who needed it) that drew all the kids. We also watched two young men weaving custom made name bracelets.

We enjoyed a quiet dinner at Magnolia Caffe, sitting outside and watching the people take their photos at the 'E' and wander the vendor tents. There were two couples sitting beside us with an 8 week old Golden Lab puppy...adorable! Stole our hearts...

Our Happy Anniversary dinner!

Three weeks in....

Things have been crazy since we left Tennessee for Florida, our cruise, family visits and then our move to here in Ecuador. I recapped most of those first weeks in our main blog and will continue here with our arrival on Dec 12th.

After a restful night at a Best Western (paid for with forgotten points - yippee!), we headed to the Miami Airport where Stu planned to drop me and our luggage while he returned the rental car. We got to the airport, found our drop off point and realized we never put gas in the car. Oops! Big circle made and he finally dropped me off, moving the luggage with the help of a porter to a waiting area.

Stu had been able to check-in online and get his boarding pass but for some reason the online check-in wouldn't accept my passport number. A wonderful gentleman from American Airlines tried to help us and failed but he did move us over to the Priority line  since we were flying Business Class.(we assumed we had to be at the International line). He didn't leave us until we were in the right spot for a ticket agent to help us. Muchos gracias to him! The clerk quickly got me checked in, printed our boarding passes and checked all our luggage.

If you remember, we originally knew we'd have one extra bag (Stu's scuba gear) in addition to the three each allowed bags (thanks to booking Business Class). We also had an allowance of 70# as compared to the normal 50#. Before we left TN we realized we would have two extra bags and by the time we got back from our cruise and repacked everything it was obvious we'd have a third extra bag. $450 for the bags but it was worth it...sad part is, if we had booked our tickets ONE DAY EARLIER, they would have been $50 a bag. Sigh...oh well. Weight? Nothing much over 62-64#.

Now comes the BIG surprise, a bonus we hadn't anticipated. We got free admission and tickets for four complimentary drinks in the Admiral's Club. Since it was now 1:00 pm and our flight wasn't until 7:30 pm, having a comfortable and safe place to sit with food, drinks and free WiFi was a real treat!

Our flight was uneventful, comfortable with delicious food (better than many restaurants), free personal movie selection and great service. We arrived at the airport less than 30 minutes late (we took off late, big surprise - NOT) and went quickly through immigration, getting our passports stamped. Being at the front of the plane, we were at the front of the line...a HUGE perk since the plane was full. From there it was on to baggage claim where we managed to find all our bags - eventually. The large carts were reserved for commercial groups/tours so we had to get three of the smaller carts to move all our luggage. Once again, Ecuadorian courtesy abounded. The guards quickly directed us to the xray machines and their porters helped us unload the carts, put the luggage on the belt and then reload our carts.

Now it was time to run the gauntlet of excited family members watching for their relatives. Round and round we pushed and pulled our carts until we got out to the main waiting area. We had reserved a room at the Howard Johnson's and confirmed their free airport shuttle. We never touched a bag again...they moved the stuff to the shuttle, then into the hotel, then up to our room! Will we stay there again? Absolutely! Our room was huge with lots of space for the luggage without it being in our way. Hot showers taken, slept well in a very comfortable king bed. Oh, and the A/C was already running in the room! We were in Guayaquil, on the coast and in the tropics

We had breakfast the next morning, not free but worth the under $25 for a real brunch - all we could eat and drink. Covered us for both breakfast and lunch! Afterwards we sat in the lobby using the free WiFi and around 11:30 we asked for our bags to be brought to the lobby. While they were being shuttled our driver Emilio arrived from Cuenca. He and the hotel staff loaded all the luggage and we were whisked off to Cuenca!

Emilio was wonderful, a careful driver who spoke English well and passed along interesting tidbits about the areas we were driving through and the history of Ecuador. When we arrived in Cuenca we quickly located the manager of the temporary apartment we had rented, got our keys and the four of us got all the bags up to the second floor apartment.

Things moved quickly from here on in...we did a fair amount of walking in El Centro and stopped at our favorite spots, San Sebas restaurant and Magnolia Caffe. We got a chance to see Huber and KarEn and meet their adorable son, born in June. We also got our first taste of Club Negra beer - delicious!!!

The other big news is moving into our permanent apartment when we had been here only a week! We managed to get a very nice used living and dining room set, a refrigerator and big TV plus two queen mattresses. Before the second week was out we had a brand new stove, the purchase of which was facilitated by our now friend, Emilio, as well as several great pieces of unfinished furniture (bench, small tables, extra chairs for the kitchen), nightstands and a few other miscellaneous items. We also made two trips to Artesa for additional dinnerware as well as some decorative pieces. Here are a few photos, lots more in our SmugMug album.

We have gotten our Visas registered making us official, now we are in the process of getting our national ID card or cedula. We were in the office last Thursday from 10:30 to 3:30 (with a trip out for lunch) and were two numbers away from being called when the main computer system went down. Sigh....we will try again this week.

We've enjoyed meeting friends, having an AMAZING New Year's Eve here - even purchasing our own effigy (although we didn't burn him this year but will next year). Not going to load more photos, hope you will visit our album.

On New Year's day we took a nice walk along the Yanuncuy river across the street from us. Took a lot of photos there, too. ;) On our way back to the apartment we stopped to enjoy a wonderful holiday parade. Parades and fireworks are big here and we've enjoyed every minute!

Last thing of note, the weather has been beautifully sunny and dry. But that means the rivers are getting low. We've had rain off and on the last two days and the rivers are flowing much better! It's all good....

I will try to blog more often but it's all WiFi dependent....soon we will get our own line and no longer share with our downstairs neighbor. Again, it's all good!!