Blogs from Baños, Centre, Ecuador, South America

Greetings from rainy Baños! July and August are the wettest months...after all, it's winter here now! Mostly it's been raining at night. There are new leaks in my master suite roof with every downpour! The add-on, it seems, didn't add on seamlessly to the existing structure...and they seem to keep popping up in new places all the time. When I awake in the night to hear interior drip-drip-dripping, it's often hard to fall back asleep...my brain starts fuming. It doesn't even make sense to repair water damage of paint and plaster until I somehow get this resolved.T his week a worker is coming to 'silicon-ize' some problem areas. We shall see if there is any improvement. Shana and I continue to have lunch and play Scrabble at least 2-3 times a week. CiCi is always under ... read more

What a wonderful Thanksgiving gathering! I took on the task of brining and roasting the turkey as well as making the stuffing (for inside and outside the bird), and mashing up a mess of real sweet potatoes. The turkey took longer to cook than planned which meant I was still carving when guests began to arrive, and it made for hectic, last minute gravy preparation! Turkey is only for very special occasions here and therefore is very expensive. I bought a $65 bird (yikes!) and put out a little collection tin (a decorated matzoh meal canister). My generous friends donated enough to cover the cost AND a tip for the musician! We were 25 people all together, guests from far and near! Betti and David came all the way from Mojanda near Otavalo (5 hours north!) ... read more

One silver lining of being 'stuck' in Baños during the country-paralyzing strikes in June was that Colin and Lori stayed for a week in my rental apartment and in his boredom, Colin had tons of drone fun all around my neighborhood. Many thanks to Colin for sharing these amazing pics with me - now my blog followers can get a real feel for the magical river valley where my house is situated! Enjoy the series of pics of my home, La Cabaña de Chocolate, located on Via al Salado in the Bascún River Valley at the base of Mama Tungurahua Volcano. The indigenous road blockades lasted for about 9 days, but shortly after the strike was lifted the jungle access road was blocked again, this time by mudslides and rockslides. There are only two main roadways ... read more

Making my home my own has been an ongoing labor of love (interwoven with periods of frustration and many lessons to learn). Many thanks to Zahra, seamstress extraordinaire, for helping me to re-cover my headboard with the remainder of the neckties. It completes the ensemble with the recycled tire ottomans (ottomen?) that we previously created together. It turns out that I loved my new duvet cover sooo much that I went out and bought another one and Zahra turned it into drapes. My new best friend Chris had just found some skinny bamboo pieces, exactly what I needed to hang the drapes from the top of my sliding glass entry doors. My fabulous carpenter, Leonidas sanded the bamboo and made small wooden supports to create just the look I had in mind. Two very bright street ... read more

So, it's already September and my construction project still isn't finished...almost!! But it seems like it's been 'almost' for over a month. Argh! This last little push seems interminably slow. Right now the hardwood floors are going in, even as we are still working out kinks - like persistent dampness and leaks in the roof & the staircase. It's been a journey...and in true construction fashion the job has ended up taking twice as long and costing twice as much as originally planned! As the architect told me (and I totally believe this) a remodel is much more difficult than building from the ground up -- since you have to deal with all of the existing factors. In my case it's been moisture in the walls that are shared with neighbors, rotting hot water pipes and ... read more