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Published: February 22nd 2011
Never let it be said I don't care about my readers. I finally found a computer with a USB port that I could use (The ones at the cyber cafes seem to block drive attachments. I think. The messages are in Spanish after all.) but the loading speed for each photo to my email was glacial. And downloading the photos on the iPad wasn't much better. But blogs about trips are diminished without photos, so in today's entry we have photos galore. Hope you enjoy. *Psych. I take back some of my love for the iPad or at least Apple. Apparently Apple won't let the iPad upload photos...meaning I have great, life-changing images for you but I can't share them. If anyone has ideas please send them.
Before we start though, a quick thank you to Mike L for giving me The Rolling Stone's
Through the Vaults Darkly album, which this blog is being written to. Good stuff. Especially "You've Got the Silver" and the guitar on "Fool To Cry."
Saturday 2/19: Start the day out right with a hot shower that isn't just randomly dripping (trust me, it feels like a luxury already). Head out (in the same clothes for the third day due to the lost luggage) into a hot but not oppressive day. Turn the corner at Luis Cordero and immediately see a long line of dwarf women in front of a church. They're about 4 ft 10 on average, all of them grandmother-ish with sun beaten and dark dried skin. Most wear the Panama hats, a colorful sweater or shawl and carry their sack of goods for sale with them. I saw two at the airport on the way in, but now they look like an army. I imagine they're from the Indian tribes. Ecuador is historically a mix of three major tribes - the Canari, the Inca and the Spanish. Of course, with Cuenca becoming a favorite location for expats from other countries to retire in (cheap, great weather, beautiful architecture and surrounding hills, etc), the diversity is much greater now in this city of 400,000. I've even seen one Asian and one goth.
My "to do" list today includes finding an ATM so I can pay the Barranco hostel, a cyber cafe so I can email a few people that I'm still alive, and just walking around to start getting a feel for the city. The first two are easy and quick. The ATM spits out dough (without mentioning any fees for intl withdrawal, hmmm), public internet sites are plentiful (25 cents for 30 minutes) and the wandering begins. Attractive colonial architecture abounds...I again think of the city as a larger, slightly more modern San Miguel. The streets are smoother, sidewalks wider and buildings not as packed together. But the look of the entryways and the hidden courtyards are there, along with similar color palates. Pretty. Pleasant. Relaxed (significant compared to the friday night crowds).
I had marked a few restaurants to try and quickly found the Moliendo Cafe (it's probably obvious by now I'm too lazy to use proper accent marks for the Spanish names). Cute little place with wooden dioramas on the wall next to neat paintings of giant stone horses and large stone women. The friendly waitress gives me some choice while holding out a menu to me. Whatever I seem to choose (I have no idea) makes her take away the menu. I must have just opted for the set lunch. Ok. No problem. Try whatever comes. And I'm pleasantly surprised. Starters include a hot green soup, potato-based with peas and little bits of pork, a banana and a glass of fruit juice (no ice, phew). The main dish comes next, and it's a chicken leg over rice, with a side of noodles and carrots and other veggies. Soup was very good, chicken leg is freaking outstanding. Nice multi-part meal, great portions. Total cost? $2.50. $3 with tip. I could do two meals a day of this, spend $6 and save a lot of money. I'm starting to see why people retire here. I'm even feeling a bit better about my understanding of what's being asked or said in Spanish, nailing four straight minor exchanges without fumbling into English. It's progress. When I leave here, overall I may be 2%!t(MISSING)ougher and 4%!m(MISSING)ore knowledgable of Spanish.
Wander a bit more and buy two bottles of water - 80 cents total. Return to the hotel to chill, play with Beatwave on the iPad (simple fun music creation program) for a while and then head to the airport at 3pm to get my lost luggage. $2 this time to get there, and getting the bag is no issue. Nothing missing or damaged. I have fresh clothes! Joy oh freaking joy. I'm also sunburnt from less than two hours of walking around. But now I have sunscreen. And batteries for the camera. It's the simple things.
My room looks crowded with all the stuff now. Shower again (cold dribble), shave, put on fresh clothes and hear the wind whip around outside (rattles the whole building). I hear explosions outside. Head out around 8pm to try Cafe Eucalyptus, something of an expat bar and restaurant. I find out the explosions are fireworks clearly welcoming me to Cuenca. Good people. Saturday night isn't as hopping as Friday but it's still early I suppose. Pass a Pablo Neruda mural, various Indians hawking their goods (jewelry, etc) including one that looks like Queequeg from
Moby Dick. Families eat ice-cream and gelato and take strolls. Eucalyptus is owned by expats and has decent wood structures everywhere, bar, stairs, tables. Nice upscale decor. Like a modern day Casablanca bar but one that's seen Casablanca and is trying to emulate it. Paintings of Che are by the door. I sit at the bar, order a bombay and tonic w/out ice (sin hielo) and look around. One middle-aged white couple, both with mullets and bad t-shirts sit at a nearby table. Place suddenly feels a little less classy. Upstairs is packed and loud but downstairs is ghostly. Later an American woman who is a vegetarian comes in and almost starts a fight with the waiter when he tells her they're out of salad. I start imagining a reality show where vegetarians are put in a Survivor-type situation without easy access to veggie fare and the episodes are built around seeing who cracks (or cracks up) first. No offense to all my vegetarian friends. I witness a great joyful hug between one of the waitresses and a friend who walks in, lots of shaking and smiles. I recently read it takes six seconds minimum for the hug to start generating seratonin and 'insert other happy chemical I can't remember here.' The G&T isn't the same without ice, so I switch to a Pilsner, which seems to be the big beer of choice here. They're out of crab bisque, so I order the carpaccio and a ceviche mix marinated in citrus. More expensive here, but I could tell that walking in. $14 for those two dishes. The carpaccio looks good, it's marinated in citrus with parmesan, topped with small yellow tomatoes, but it tastes pretty average. The ceviche on the other hand is very solid. Some large party of Americans arrives and gives the downstairs some life. One of the guys, about 50, looks at my notes and asks if I'm writing the great american novel. I tell him it's the starter version. We chat for a minute - he's part of a conservationist group and the people here are having their annual board meeting (well, the dinner after the meeting). Finish my last beer (back to Brahma, since they're out of Pilsner) and pack it up to head home. I start to wonder if, after two weeks, I'll get bored here. One week in San Miguel was sufficient...seeing all the crazy artisan shops and walking the streets is less thrilling after about a week. I'm not a shopper and only a few cultural activities are going to be in English. But I remind myself I'm here for a different experience, to try and actually live here (for 3 months), not just dip in, see the major sites and dip out. Give it time. Besides, I like this place so far. And it satisfies the basic 'novelty, challenge and growth' principles I'm trying to enact for this experience.
Back in the room, I write my last blog entry in about an hour and start reading
The Happiness Project since I finished the 700 page basketball book this morning. Maybe 28 books was too low.
The Happiness Project is something of a light-hearted experiment by an upper-crusty, Yale educated NYC woman to, from what I can tell 50 pages in, mostly wants to stop nagging at her husband. It's almost becoming comical the degree to which she resents things he does and doesn't do, but she keeps reaffirming how great he is, not convincingly in the face of her annoyance. And that henpecked husband has Hep C, meaning it's likely his liver is going to shrivel up and kill him in the not so distant future, making the author seem particularly unsympathetic. Some little observations and tips from the book are fine and have some resonance, but right now I'm mostly keeping up with it to see how deep her resentment is and how badly she herself needs affirmation from the husband. Books that look to examine a premise or test a formula and miraculously by the end find the formula/hypothesis was at least 90%!c(MISSING)orrect seem inherently untrustworthy. But I guess they're selling a result to an audience, not an open investigation. Fall asleep around 2am to the Rolling Stones 'Exile on Main Street' album.
Awake Sunday the 20th at 10am, check email and some news (ack....already becoming tethered). Recently I read a Good Reads book review by Marc W and his friend commented (well, either he made the comment or was paraphrasing another author, I can't recall) that it's not technology that we're trying to manage in our lives, it's that we're trying to manage ourselves managing technology (he put this in actual articulate, less self-help-ish verbiage). The whole 'guns don't shoot people, people shoot people' line of thought. I agreed and determined that my own personal media addiction has me occasionally feeling like an alcoholic passing a bar...I get shaky and want to go in. I'm not managing my access to it as well as I hope. I don't want to fill all unscheduled time with just checking email again, or reading an unnecessary 10 to 20 articles (some yes, but sometimes it's reading to fill dead space, whether the article turns out to be valuable or not). It's information and entertainment, but rarely growth or challenge (not that it couldn't become that). Anyway, if I'm having trouble creating a boundary for myself that I find acceptable and beneficial, I'm hoping lack of access temporarily will aid attempts to develop new discipline and habits, incorporating that into life when access becomes 24/7 again. But admittedly it's tough to pass up a tool that makes things easier. Having wifi at the hotel now is infinitely easier than having to find a cyber cafe to do a quickie check. Determing what is nourishing and what is wasteful is tougher than the question suggests. Anyway, just some minor thoughts floating around.
Sunday is church and party day here in Cuenca! I hear a parade outside the hostel early on. Then I stroll up to the main square, the Parque Calderon, and there are major festivities going on. Tons of people, music playing, clowns performing, Indians selling goods, street vendors selling lime and chips or big plates of ice-cream with dipping cones. I stand around and watch for awhile, also catching a giant flower sale going on at the next block and an Indian with full American Indian headdress before heading up to Akelarre Tapas Espanoles for lunch. I read they serve their paella only on Sundays so I figure it has to be good. Gorgeous interior dining area...old southern mansion style but with a clear window ceiling. No one else here. Must all be at the festivities. I order the paella and take notes and pictures. Lovely place. The bread comes with something like a melted butter sauce, with onions and cilantro. A free glass of sangria also appears. I scoop out the single ice cube as to not test fate. The paella has huge shrimp and chicken but the smallest mussels ever seen. Unfortunately, though everything looks great, I can only give it a passing grade. The saffron was ok but somehow didn't jibe with the rice which seems to me to be the main job of paella. Decent. Just not mind-blowing.
Head back to the main square. The main throng of people is gone, but souls still mill about. A black man with face painted white and wearing a golden wizard robe and jester hat levitates four feet off the ground next to the church, one hand on a pole that extends underneath him. I imagine somehow that pole extends down his wizard sleeve and creates a seat for him under the clothes, but I have to admit it looks convincing (question being, how does he get down at the end of the day if there is a seat there?). I tip a dollar and take a picture (for all the Viz workers - his tip cup had DragonBall Z images on it). Give a wizard his due. I sit on the park bench and watch the massive main church, the Immaculada Cathedral, which is just a behemoth of brick and stone. Soon the doors open and droves of casually dressed church goers exit, with the street vendors now chanting for their attention and hopefully sales. Cotton candy, banana chips and ice-cream are everywhere.
There's more walking and picture taking. Most everything is closed on Sundays. I think I'm going to be screwed for dinner options. I buy water from a small shop owner and he tells me (actually for the second time) he works in Brooklyn for part of the year and lets out a "God Bless America!" cry three times in a row. I tell him his country is pretty great too. He agrees and says they're both free. Head down the stairs that lead to the Rio Tomebamba, the river that is behind my hostel and actually divides the city, with the old section of town north of the river and more modern part of town on the south. The stairs are decorated with tons of kick-ass murals, gorgeous and elaborate. Pictures included for those that love drawings of any kind. At the bottom of the stairs, the river looks really serene and pleasent. Couples and friends lounge on the green banks (including the cutest puppy I've seen since Livia's pup BaoBao. Which is probably spelled wrong). Later I find out the Inca Cafe and Bar on the bank of the river, so I figure I'll try that out soon.
I do manage to find an open dinner spot, Cafe Austria (you guessed it, an expat joint owned by a...German?). I order what I think is a cheese sandwich and get a cheese and fruit plate. Again hoping the fruit hasn't been washed in tap water (yes, by now you know I'm paranoid about this. I also just read a scary article on staph infections and how they're particularly dangerous if you have an open wound, which I do. Never denied being a hypochondriac.) The plate and a cup of tea (my first since Thursday, when I usually average six to eight a day) are enough to get me by. Plus the place has good trip-hop-y music and a relaxing, candle soft atmosphere.
The rest of the evening has been photo uploading and downloading and blog writing (by the way, while I like this blog service overall, travelblog has a very annoying auto-save function which interrupts my writing every two minutes or so. arg.). Tomorrow at 9am I set up a tour with a local expat who's going to assist me in getting an emergency pay as you go phone, show me an apartment I could rent for March and April, give me the lowdown on public trans and show me the sites, starting with functional stuff like the grocery stores and hospitals, ending with more of the fun scenic sites. Hope it's good. Buenos Noches.
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Cassie
non-member comment
Hola
That is Spanish for hello. For some reason, John got an e-mail about your blog, but not me. I know that Red Sox got Carl Crawford, but we can still be friends, okay? I will see if I can find some insight to the your Ipad photo situation. Ceviche sounds good, staph infections not so much. Have fun, and be safe.