Sunday Morning

The first picture shows the door that leads into our court yard. The house that has our apartment is about 100 feet off the road. The pull down garage door rolls up at night and behind it is a Pizza Parlour. All the businesses have the roll down doors for security. When we walk the streets during the day many of these are closed and look like they are out of business. When they all open, it changes the whole atmosphere of the street. Our apartment is on the section of Calle Larga that is "party central"....there are 7 or 8 restaraunt/bars on our block alone. We go from ghost town to party town starting about 6. Fortunaetly our place is so far back that we don't often hear the party

The second picture shows two businesses that are on one of the streets close to us. When all the doors are rolled up, an amazing variety of stores and businesses are revealed. Every thing from boutique shoe and clothing stores, to jewlery stores, pet stores, kitchen stores, internet cafes , furniture stores....and anything you could imagine. I think you could get anything you needed or wanted within 20 blocks. including doctors and lawyers, banks, and beautiful city parks. And, don't forget the churches.............and the local fresh produce and meat markets. As you can tell, I am enthralled with this city.

The food is another topic that deserves mentioning.
There are so many restaraunts and cafes within walking distance that we have not eaten in the same one twice.
It would take a month or more just to eat in all the cafes...let alone the restaraunts.
All the little places offer a "tipico comida"  menu. Each day there is a breakfast and lunch plate offered. They cost between 2 and 3 dollars, including the tax and tip. For the lunch you always get juice, meat, salad, two starches and dessert. I usually stick with the chicken or fish. I have not had a meal yet that was bad......even the time that our small amount of spanish could not figure out what we ordered, and it turned out to be beef tounge. I don't think I could knowingly eat it, but not knowing what it was, I have to say it was quite tasty.
We haven't been out for breakfast, We pick up fresh fruit each evening and have fruit, toast, and the most amazing yogurt for breakfast. It seems that every block has one if not two bakeries. It is a good thing we are walking so much, because the baked goods are irresistable. A huge whipped cream filled puff pastry is only 25 cents.
One wonders why a person would ever cook or eat at home, but we bought a huge avocado for 50 cents, a puond of fresh prawns for 2.50 at the local market and had a fantastic prawn & avacado salad for dinner.....which reminds me, the mayonaise here is extremely tasty....I could eat it by the spoon full.

It is almost 9 a.m. on Sunday and we have had a lazy morning. We are meeting a Canadian couple, from Vancouver, for lunch. They moved here in 2008 with there little dog and I am anxious to know how the process of getting the dog here works...................I sure miss my little Pete.........................

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Pictures

Cuenca......come on in...the waters great!

We have been here one week today.

For the first time ever, I have left the North American continent and not had a bout of the old "Montezumas revenge". The water in Cuenca is as safe as at home. We drink the tap water and use ice. Of all things I experience when traveling, the clean water has always been one of my major concerns. I love this place!

What a change came over the city when the voting was over and the booze ban was lifted and people who had gone back to thier hometowns to vote had returned to the city.In Ecuador, when there is a vote, it is mandatory that every one 18 to 65 must vote. If you don't you get fined. Over 65 it is optional. You also must return to the city you are registered to vote It is a very big deal!
Monday when we stepped outside our courtyard onto the street it was a whole different world.
Businesses that we thought were out of business were all opened and the sidewalks were huming with activity.
We left our apartment about 9 a.m. and walked the city streets all day. There is so much to see. We are going to have to start a list of the things we really want to see and the places we want to visit. So far we just walk and gawk.
We went farther afield and explored a bit of  "new town" which is just across the river. It is more of a residential area with the kind of shopping we have in our neighbor hoods at home.
Tuesday night we went o a "gringo" gathering place. We walked in and found a table with two empty seats and were invited to have a sit by a guy with a heavy Canadian accent. Amazingly, he and his wife used to live in Abbotsford and still have grown kids there! Is this a small world or what!??! After meeting more Gringos, (gringo is not considred a rude word here), we went to a local bar with the Canadian couple and a couple from Georgia we had met earlier ,and played "Trivial Pursuit". good time.

It is very easy to meet other non-Ecuadorians here.

Wednesday we met up with Jim, a man from Chicago, who I had been in contact thru the internet. He is in the process of establishing residency here. He was a wealth of information, and took us to an excellent local restaraunt.

After lunch we rode the city bus just to get a grip on the system. There are litteraly 100's of buses running on 25 lines and you never wait more then 10 minutes to get the one you need. you can go anywhere for 25 cents.
We got off the bus at the SuperMaxi...the Safeway of Ecuador....and explored the store to see what was available.Looked jut like our stores only in Spanish............
Thursday we hopped the bus and went up the mountain to the local Hot Mineral Springs. I could do that eveyday! We are going back on Monday, and I am having a massage. A one hour, full body massage is 30.00. It only costs 2.75 to spend the whole day at the baths. If I lived here I would go twice a week.
My back and leg have not bothered me since I got here.
Today we rode an open double decker bus on a 2 hour tour of the city.You will see from the pictures how awesome that was.
That brings us up todate for the week.
I am going to try to take the time to blog more more often.
For sure, I am going to devote one blog to the food here! AMAZING!
catch up later...........D&D

First two days in Cuenca

Two days....it's hard to believe that is all the time we have been here in this  amazing city.
The studio apartment we are in is much nicer than I had expected. It is located in the old Colonial part of the city, two blocks from thr Park Calderon with the Tomebamba River on the back side and Calle Larga on the front. though we are on one of the busiest streets of old town, we have a walled courtyard that seperates us from the outside and it is very quiet.
The city has been very quiet this weekend. There was a country wide election held Saturday and all sales of any alchohol has been banned since Thursday! Absolutely no booze sold in this country for 5 days!....Can you imagine what that would be like at home?!? It's 8 oclock Sunday night and still no bars open. There are at least 10 restraunts or bars within two blocks of us....all closed since we arrived Friday night. It will be interesting to see what it is like tomorrow. it has been a bit of a ghost town all weekend.
that's not all bad, as it allowed us to walk a lot without being overwhelmed.
We have walked about a kilometer in each direction just to get our bearings. The architect of this town is truly jaw dropping. And, the parks are beautiful. The churces, homes, river, so much to take in.
Yesterday we found the flower market just a few blocks away. AMAZING. Our little apartment smells quite rosy from my meager 5.00 floral arrangement.
 Then we found an indoor market place for produce, meat, and any other thing you might think you want or need.
Tomorrow everything will open back up and will see if we can figure out the bus system, all though, we have a lot of things to see with in blocks of our apt.,before we need to venture further.
The weather has been a bit cool and cloudy. We have been told that the past two days have been the "coldest" days here in a year ( I think it got down to 11 celsius).We were in long pants and sleeves but some of the locals were quite bundled up. The weather forcast looks very promising.
I am posting a few pics, but most of the time we are out I get so busy looking I forget to take pics.

The first pictues shows the back of our apartment. The building in front is a restraunt. We are on the 2nd floor of the building behind it. The picture of the  Tomebamba River  is right behind us,in front of the restraunt. The other is the flower market and the floral arrangement I got at the market.
My goal for tomorrow is to find an outdoor cafe for lunch and have a glass of wine or two.
Life is tuff.

Bahia de Caraquez

This is a place I could live.
Miles of beautiful beaches,deserted at this time of year, but I'm told it gets a bit crowdeduring the high season.The town is clean and the local people are very friendly and helpful.
After an earthquake in 1998, Bahia rebuilt its self as an Eco-city. They started the first city run composting station in Ecuador. Though you can get a cab at any time, most people use thelocal "tritocicleros" to get around town.For only .50 you can get anywhere, but the town is small enough that you can walk anywhere.
We took a day trip to a town called Canoa. This is a surfers village stuck in the 70's. Party central on weekends.
We took a cab ($8.00)to get there and arranged to be pick up at 4....let me re-phrase that...THOUGHT we arranged it. It took untill 5:30 to convince Doug the cab wasn't coming back. We hoped on a local bus for .50 that took us to the town of San Vincente and ten for .35 we got the local panga ferry back to Bahia......8.00 to get there....1.70 to get back...we are learning.
We stopped in at the local market to buy a notebook to keep track of all this new found wisdom and while there we met the nicest couple from California.Suzanne and Michael  had sailed into Bahia and never left.
They are a delightful couple living the kind of life we dream of.
We had planned on moving down the coast after one night, but stayed for three.
We had dinner with Michelle and made arrangements to see Suzanne and Mike the next morning for coffee.
They have a wonderful home looking at the beach that they remodeled from an old ocean front bar. We sat on there terrazo looking at the ocean and talking for a few hours.
Then off to the bus terminal to but tickets for the next days trip to Cuenca. We were quite proud of ourselves that we were able to get to the "terminal terreste",purchase the tickets, and get back to the hotel. Our usable Spanish is increasing rapidly.
We had a great dinner with Suzanne & Michael and then walked along the Malacon enjoying thier company.  I hope that we will remain friends. They are living proof us that we can have the life we want if we just get out and do it.
Next is the great bus adventure to Cuenca.

Bus trip to the coast.

We left Quito Tuesady at noon, I felt a bit anxious making the trip on the bus as it had taken every bit of Spanish we could drag up to buy the tickets. I was worried about how we would know when to get off and on the bus.....where and what would we eat....all that stuff. But, Doug as usual was just going with the flow....I have to relax and not worry so much. Just as we were trying to figure out how to buy snacks for the trip, a voice of an angel says "going to the beach?" Enter into our lives Michelle. A young woman from Oregon on a solo 6 month trip thru South America. God truly looks after fools and old people.Michelle became our friend and interpertur for a few days.She is a true free spirit and we hope to see her in the future.
We climbed down from the 9000 feet height of Quito to sea level.The trip was amazing. Jungle,cloud forrest,an amzing assortmentof tiny villages and bustling towns. Unfortunatley, I did not get any pictures of the trip.
We arrived at a beach town called Bahia de Caraquez arround 8, in the dark and shared a cab into el centrol  with Michele.We dropped her off at her destinationa and  had the driver drop us off at a hotel we heard about on the net. The driver drives away and two youg fellows in uniform sweep us and aur baggage into the loby. With our limited Spanish we find out rooms are 129.00 a night! Not in our budget for this leg of the trip.They come down to 89.00 but I said no thanks and we and our luggage were suddenly outside, 0n a dark desserted street with no idea of where we are going and no cab insight.hmmmmmm....I perhaps I was a bit hasty.....I was feeling a bit of panic.
But, the young man that helped us in and out with our baggage pointed down a street and said something in spanish and the one word I undetstood was "otel" Off we troll with 2 suitcase and two backpacks into the night....one half a block further we see the Herredura Hotel and we decided it would do us untill moning.
The hotel was an amzing place. I highly reccomend them to everyone. Outstanding staff. Safe.Cean. Across the street to the beach. Walking distance to everwhere.
I will write about our time in Bahia later. Time to get out into the world.
Diana

Adios to Quito

Today we say good buy to beautiful Quito. We walked for hours yesterday and never got outside of what is referred to as the "new town " area. Came across a beautiful park with a small market selling local artisan and native crafts.
So much more to see here. We will definately return.

The little bit of Spanish I know is not even close to being enough! Buying our bus tickets to the coast was quite the adventure. Thank goodness for goggle translator and the internet. I have resorted to looking up what we want to say and writing it down in Spanish before we leave the hotel..........not great...but it is working. The people of Ecuador are very friendly and helpful, and they all seem to be very happy and respectful of one another.

Today we have our first experience with the Ecuador Interprovincial bus sytsem. We leave at noon and will arrive at the coast by 9 p.m. Headed to a place called Bahia de Caraquez. We will spend a few days there and then work our way down the coast to Salinas. From Salinas, we head inland to Cuenca.

The weather has been beautiful. A few thunderstorms in the late afternoon. Averaging 24 degrees. Not much humidity, but that may change when we get to the coast.

Next post will be from the coast.Until then......
                                                                  Via con dias mis amigas y mi familia.
D&D