Our Cuenca Accomodations

Allan wrote...

We moved into our apartment yesterday, on Sunday, after a couple nice nights at the Villa Nova Inn. Now that we're settled in a bit, we're about to find out what this city has for a couple of gringos like us.

Lots of good restaurants, of which we've only sampled a few so far. Street food - oh yeah, you can smell it from a half-block away.  The market:  it's a whole story in itself, and here's the short version.  Just picture a two-story building about twice the size of a Kroger or Publix.  On the ground floor it's filled with row upon row of produce, so much that you can't even imagine it all being sold, no matter how long you allow. Each row is divided into dozens of sections, with each section being headed up by an Ecuadorian woman, often in traditional garb including the Panama hat.  Some of them bring their children with them to help out. These women bring produce from their own gardens to sell and support their families. Others buy wholesale from the big farmers at yet another even bigger market that runs daily from about 4AM to 8AM.  Beside produce, some of which I just can't identify, you can get everything from live chickens and chicks to the heart and lungs of pig to almost any cut of meat -- with chicken and pork predominating -- and even fresh fish driven in just five hours ago from the Pacific coast. And that's just the first floor!  The second floor has a "food court" but oh boy, it's not like the one at the Richmond or Perimeter Mall. There you'll find entire families eating huge slices off an entire roast pig, head, snout and all, chowing down and having a great time. I saw at least 6-8 entire pigs flayed out and being carved up for customers. Literally heaven for meat eaters and I'll have to admit it really did smell wonderful. But I've been off my veggie discipline for a few days and am already feeling "plugged up" .. so didn't partake of any meat there.  I hope we can get some good pictures of the place because it really is overwhelmingly HUGE and is one of those things you need to see to believe.

Today we met with Ana Loja, a professor at the University of Cuenca, and her department director, Loli.  We talked about exchange programs, about Ecuador and had a great time getting to know them. Ana is picking us up Thursday to take us on a bigger tour of the University and to visit the local orchid farm.  Flowers here are everywhere and with the 365-day growing season, flowers are a major export product, especially to the USA.  Perhaps later in the week or next week we'll go with Ana to a local community where a group of students from University of Maryland spend a month working with the school children there on an cultural exchange program.

I'm sitting on the patio rooftop of our apartment, uploading a video we made today of our new quarters here in Cuenca. With the ponderously slow upload speed through the wi-fi channel, it looks like the upload will take another few hours. Might have to go to an Internet cafe and see if they have a way to do the upload faster...will try to do that Tuesday.

Becky wrote...

Ana and Loli were delightfully friendly people, and were ready to entertain us next time and maybe another time, too!  She wished that we would move here and take jobs for our expertise in education and technology.  I said, "uh, uh, I'm retired and plan to stay that way."  They laughed.  Oh yeah, the Ecuadoreans are "green" all the way!!

It's nice to find some people so ready to be friends with us!  We are pleased.  It's chilly out here on the roof, so we'll close for now.