Heading to Cuenca

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Morning came early in Guayaquil after our late arrival. We had to get to the bus station to get our tickets to Cuenca, and reading that it was a 4-5 hour trip, we wanted to get an early start so we could get there early enough to find a place to stay for the night. I did want to be prepared though and I thought that a long bus ride over a rough mountain road might necessitate some motion sickness tablets. So, armed with my handy Spanish PhraseFinder/Dictionary, I headed downstairs, with confidence, to the pharmacia that I had noticed upon our late night arrival. I had already checked the ‘At the Pharmacy’ pages and had found just what I was looking for; ‘Necesito algo para…’ (I need something for…) and ‘el enfermedad de movimiento’ (motion sickness). Perfect, right? In my best halting Spanish I got out this sentence, only to have the lady behind the counter look at me blankly. Well, on to plan B. I said the word ‘autobus’, then swayed from side to side, while holding my stomach. Her eyes lit up with understanding as she held her own stomach, and she went away, soon coming back with something that didn’t look like motion sickness tablets. I believe she thought I was pregnant. Suspiciously, I looked at the Spanish writing on the box, then shook my head and began to pantomime again. This time, I did all the previous actions, then added vomiting at the end! She again lit up with understanding and asked “vomeet… nowsea?” Relieved, I shook my head vigorously in agreement and she brought me something that looked right. The three Ecuadorians in line behind me were probably relieved too. I’m still not sure if they actually were motion sickness tablets, since I didn’t actually need to use them. It has since occurred to me that I probably could have just asked for Gravol, as I now see many familiar brand names in the store windows.
Mr. Miranda, our guest house host got us to the bus company this morning (we ended up taking a 7 passenger van, which was a little more costly, $12 ea., but we didn't have to worry about our luggage because we didn't make any stops).
We made it to Cuenca in a little less than 3 hrs, rather than the 4-5 we expected; a beautiful trip through the mountains, but hairy! Firstly, the seatbelts didn't work; secondly it was like Nascar, squealing tires around every mountain curve. It's a good thing that it had those Holy F--- Handles (that's what my Dad used to call them)! The rules of the road here are similar to Honduras - Do not slow down for curves, do wait for a blind curve to pass, speed up in construction zones… you get the drift! We would all lean wildly to the left, then wildly back to the right, hour after hour.
As luck would have it, we arrived in Cuenca in the middle of a 3 day Independence Day celebration. I think all of Ecuador was in town! Here we were, sitting at the tour bus agency, surrounded by all our worldly possessions, while I called around trying to connect with our English-speaking Realty agent, who was going to help us find a long term rental. Unfortunately, she was in another town, and would be unable to help us that day.
A little Asian lady, hearing me speaking English on the phone, came rushing over to see if I could help her call her connection. She was very friendly, and we called several of her connections, but no one had anything to rent for this busy night. After an hour or so, this little lady began to go around the room asking, “you speak English, you speak English?” and amazingly, one young man nodded that he did. Vassana asked him if he knew of any place to stay for the night, and he replied that he had just come from a place called Villa Nova Inn, and would call them for us and see if they had an opening. It turns out they did, and he then flagged down a taxi for us and sent us on our way. At this point, we were happy not to have to spend the night at the bus station!
As it turns out, though, the cab driver didn’t know exactly where it was, and so once he got close, he got out and started wandering up and down, asking people if they knew of it. Finally after about 10 minutes of this, he found it and helped us unload our bags. For all this, he charged us $2 and we gave him a $1 tip. All this time, there were hundreds, if not thousands of people wandering the streets, music was playing and festivities were in full swing all around us.
Anyways, we are overlooking a picturesque little river, with quaint curved stone bridges, After checking in, we headed back outside to see what was going on. There were hundreds of artisans with booths set up all through the parks and along the streets. Not cheap trinkets, but beautiful framed art work, leather work, metalwork, alpaca shawls and sweaters, traditional brilliantly coloured fabrics and on and on. I instantly wished for a bigger suitcase, as it will be tough deciding which items to take home.
We had delicious empanadas for late lunch, early supper, for 50 cents ea. That's my kind of price! Dennis bought a coffee with a $5 bill, and got back $4.80! Anyway, we are going for another walk around later. We met an English-speaking couple here at Villa Nova, and their names are Dennis and Gaila Lynn. Weird,eh! Tomorrow we look for a rental.

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