Blogs from Ecuador, South America - page 6

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

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Even during a pandemic I managed to enjoy my bday! The day before (which is always Valentine's Day) fell on a Sunday so I arranged for an outdoor luncheon with 10 friends. The best restaurant in Baños, Swiss Bistro, had just re-opened in their new location -- the gardens of a lovely hotel (Ali Samay) - centrally located but not well-known (they mostly work with tour groups). I wanted to help the owner (my dear friend Patrick) jump-start his new and improved dining experience by re-introducing our gringo group to this formerly favorite establishment. A couple of the attendees didn't feel comfortable dining at the same table with so many others, so we arranged for a separate table for them a few meters away from the group. It was a bright, sunny day as we gathered ... read more

Poet, novelist, and travel writer William Graham holds a BA and MA in English and a MS in Communication from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He lives in Stowe, Vermont. Many of his books are also available on Audible.com. His latest novel is url=https://www.amazon.com/Portland-Noir-Maine-Murder-Mysteries/dp/B08MSLXMN2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=W50AA0CGTCD4&dchild=1&keywords=portland+noir+maine&qid=1609951356&sprefix=portland+noir%2Caps%2C172&sr=8-2Portland Noir, the fourth and final installment in his Maine Murder Mysteries series. It was early: six-thirty in the morning, dawn on the equator in the country of Ecuador. The sun, however, had yet to make a dent in the thick cloud cover in the Ecuadorian cloud forest at the 2,000-acre preserve of the Bellavista Cloud Forest Lodge, situated at 7,000 feet above sea level and about a two-and-a half-hour rugged drive north o... read more