Carrino

On Thursday, we had one last lunch at the California Kitchen and headed over to the Cuenca bus station. To get to the North Coast of Peru, the quickest way is to cross at the coast... however, this crossing is notable for its sketchiness. So, we decided to cross into Peru at the mountain crossing, near Macara, for caution's sake (in literature, this would be called foreshadowing). This also gave us a chance to spend our last night in Ecuador in Loja, other than Cuenca our favorite place in the country. We had some tamales and empanadas at url=http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ecuador/the-southern-highlands/loja/restaurants/south-american/el-tamal-lojanoEl Tamal Lojano, and a couple of drinks at url=http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ecuador/the-southern-highlands/loja/entertainment-nightlife/pub/el-viejo-mineroEl Viejo Minero. Friday morning, we headed out early for the long bu... read more

So, this is the New Year. After all the eating and revelry of Christmas, we had a few days of rest before another party weekend came upon us. Like most of the world, New Year's Eve in Cuenca is an excuse to celebrate with friends and families. But, of course, there are a few unique traditions. During the day, the streets were brimming with people. One of the big traditions is shooting fireworks and burning effigies at midnight (or, really, all day). Rather than burning in anger, however, the effigies are supposed to bring good luck for whoever they represent for the coming year (burning away of the old, rebirth, that sort of thing). People paraded around town with plaster figures tied to their dashboard, their roofs, their truck cabs. Smurfs were particularly popular, but plenty ... read more

Well, hopefully you weren't waiting breathlessly. Yes, we were able to get back to Ecuador (legally). No matter what anybody tells you, if you do it in a certain order, you can stay in Ecuador for a year on tourist visas (it's like pushing buttons in a certain order in a video game to unlock stuff). We packed up our bags, and left the rest of our stuff in shippable boxes with our friend Jim. We hadn't yet experienced the great Deportivo Cuenca futbol team in person, so we went to see them beat F.C. Manta like a drum at noon on Sunday. Afterwards, we celebrated one potentially last afternoon of NFL Red Zone at the Inca. On Monday morning, we headed out, passing through Loja on our way to the crossing at Macara, finally ending ... read more

Finished with our preschool job, we had a week before Chris started Spanish school and Justin started teaching at a short summer school program. The beach is overcast and cold this time of year, so we headed out to the other direction…to the Amazon basin jungle. Most of Ecuador’s jungle tourist spots are farther north, accessible from Quito or Baños, but we stayed closer to Cuenca into the country’s southern Oriente. It was like a road trip without a car... each day we spent a couple of hours on a bus, explored a new little town, and searched for someplace to have dinner, usually ending up with the ubiquotous roasted chicken. First stop was Mendez, an extremely small town. In about an hour we found a room in the one hotel, walked through the center of ... read more

First the sweet. Last Thursday was Corpus Christi, a Catholic feast day, that kicked off a week of festivities in Cuenca. Our guidebooks tell us that this holiday absorbed several harvest festival traditions that predate the arrival of Spanish to Ecuador, so even for a pretty Catholic country this celebration seems bigger than usual. We've now seen a lot of holidays here - Carnival, Cuenca Day, Battle of Pichincha Day - but Corpus Christi could be the best as it involves some serious eating. The town's central Parque Calderon becomes a giant candy store as wall-to-wall vendors sell all kinds of chocolates, cookies, and meringues. While there hardly needs to be an occasion to warrant fireworks here, the displays this week have seemed particularly large. And on Thursday night, there was a big "url=http://www.elmercurio.com.ec/285798-la-fiesta-de-la-musica-inicio-con-buena-vi... read more