Now that we are on the beach relaxing, we decided to close the book on our four weeks in Cuenca, and to a lesser degree our first month in Ecuador. By the way, we have passed the 100th post mark on the blog! Yeah Us! This blog may be a bit stream of consciousness, so […]
Cuenca
Burn the Old Men for New Years
New Year’s Eve is the biggest holiday in Ecuador. Cuenca is often considered the epicenter for one of the most unique traditions. Life in Ecuador has a pretty good write-up: One big part of the festivities for New Years Eve in Ecuador are “los años viejos” (the old years). People make large scarecrow-like dolls often […]
A Room With Kind of a View
Mary asked for more details on living arrangements. I didn’t really take many photos of the first two situations. But here is a quick briefing: You got to see the Mejia house in the Christmas post. Richard’s apartment was quite roomy, had 2.5 baths, and a nice kitchen (albeit without an oven). By far […]
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad! Christmas Wishes! It’s now been 3 1/2 months since leaving St. Paul, and 4 months since homelessness. What a long strange trip it’s been! There are two main constants that have we have seen along the way: People tend to be pretty great – whether American, Ecuadorian, friends, acquaintances, or total strangers, […]
Pumapunga
Presumably you’ve already read Ellen’s latest postcard, so you know that we’re both suffering from fairly extreme altitude sickness. It’s Saturday so there is no school. Even though we didn’t know when businesses open, we left at about 7:15. Naturally, nothing was open, so we waited until 8:15 to get a bit of breakfast. We […]
Cuenca – On Tour
Sunday morning we headed out to check out the city. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the air is clear. Turns out, most of the businesses (including restaurants) are closed on Sundays. We walked past a plaza with vendors selling primarily Christmas stuff – lights, manger figures, etc. This, by-the-way, is the route that […]
Up
I’m happy to say that Ellen felt much better today. We packed up, had breakfast, and headed over to the van company across the street. We decided to go with the van, even though it was $3.50 more per person. It was just across the street. On the van, an Ecuadorean told us that the […]