On the Go with John and Jessie

It’s Monday evening, the start of our second week of classes at the Simon Bolivar Spanish School in Cuenca, Ecuador.

We’ve settled into our apartment which is three blocks from the school and one block from the main square, Parque Abdón Calderón, in ‘old town’. Its very convenient to walk to the local mercardo’s or to take a taxi ($2) to the SuperMaxi which is just like an US super market.  Ecuador uses US currency, mixing in their own coins, which makes comparative pricing easy.

As I write this, I’m listening to the last night of a week-long religious celebration, consisting of music (singing & Andean flutes) and sermons broadcast on loud speakers from the nearby cathedral square, accompanied by fireworks.  Once this ends, usually around 10pm, the city is extremely quiet until the church bells start ringing around 6am, at sun-up.  Tonight the festivities & fireworks lasted until 11:20p.

Our personal “life style” guides and tutors are Santiago for Jessie and Esteban for John. Our 4 days of classes include, generally, 2 hours of individual tutoring at the school and 1.5 hours of excursions. We’ve gone to the cathedral,  museums, markets, or just visited the old town sights.

On martes (Tuesday), we went (individually) to a near-by market that included indigenous lady shamans offering personal cleansing. Jessie jumped at the chance to get straightened out. The process consists of light beating with a bundle of herbs (aromatherapy), followed by gusts of alcohol over the head & body (the shaman ingests some alcohol, then blows it out – sounds icky, but isn’t), then a massage with an egg to absorb bad spirits. Finally, the egg is broken into a plastic sack and “read”.  Jessie was pronounced “limpio” (clean), not nervous.

On miércoles (Wednesday), Jessie went to Feria Libre, a large market just out of town, 20-minute bus ride for 25¢.   Santiago showed her how to shop and bargain in the market.

On jueves (Thursday) the class visited the Homero Ortega Hat Factory which includes an interesting “Panama Hat” museum.  They are careful to document that the Panama, or toquilla,

John in Cajas Nat’l Park standing on Inca Trail

hat originated in Cuenca and the best are still handmade here.  The finished hats at the factory range in price from around $33 to $1000’s based on the quality of the reeds used and the handicraft in the making.  John bought himself a hat for $84.

Viernes (Friday) there were no classes, and we joined an AHI bus tour to the near-by Cajas National Park.  Starting at 8400′ altitude we climbed through the various climate zones to the 14,000′ pass and continental divide on the road to Guayaquil.  We got to explore a little of the area near the top, which was green with low ground cover and groves of ‘paper trees’ (named for their layers of bark) which, they say, are the only trees in the world that grow at that altitude.  On the way back down we stopped at a trout (trucha) farm and had a delicious meal.  Rainbow trout were introduced by the Spaniards, quickly dominating the native fish specifies and changing the ecosystem, including the extinction of a ‘swimming mouse’ that lost its main food source.

Sábado (Saturday) we joined a school-sponsored bus trip to an archeological site about 2 hours from Cuenca in El Tambo, called Coyoctor.  After arriving in El Tambo we boarded a trolley-like train which transported us about a mile to the 2 acre site nestled among active farms and residences.  The Coyoctor site was used by the Pre-Inca, the Kichwa people, and Incas as a ceremonial bath and royal residence, with the baths carved out of the andecite  rock, but also includes foundation rocks brought by the Incas from Cusco, Peru.  In the 1920’s a house was built on top of the site, and apparently the surrounding area is full of Inca artifacts on the farmed land.

On domingo (Sunday) we rested.  Jessie is contending with a nasty cough so we stayed close to our new home.  Cuenca pretty much shuts down on Sunday, with hardly anyone on the streets or in the few shops still open.  We found out that alcohol sales are not allowed on Sundays.

Intermixed with our schooling and trips, we’ve been eating very well.  For example, we had a wonderful meal at Tiestos on Saturday, which featured Ecuadorian ‘fusion’ plates of chicken & beef served family-style and a dessert served on plates with beautifully hand-painted confection designs.  This diner was hosted by AHI, but we’ve also had great 3-course lunches for as little as $2.25 each.  A typical tip is 8% or so.  We’ve not tried the Ecuadorian national dish, cuy,  yet but will soon.

Jessie sampling exotic fruit in Gualaceo market

After traveling for 24-hours (with a 10 hour layover in Miami airport) we arrived in Quito for two nights at the upscale Swissotel where we were to meet up with our AHI group.  Jessie spent most of the following day trying to get the newer of her 2 PCs to work, and finally determined that it needed a new disk.  It contained all our camera support software & Skype, etc.  Dell is sending a replacement disk to Cuenca — we’ll see how that works out.

Quito is an elongated city in a valley between two mountains at about 9,500 feet.  On our 2nd day we took a city  bus ($.25 fare) around and did some walking, but not much else.  But it did get us acclimatized for our destination of Cuenca, which is a mere 8,400 feet altitude.

We arrived in Cuenca on Friday afternoon after joining the AHI group in Quito and flying over the cloud-covered Andes (with one volcanic, snow covered peak looming over the clouds).  We spent the first night in Hotel Victoria in the Old Town section of Cuenca.  It’s a very nice old hotel and our room overlooked the river and the newer Cuenca business district.  As in Quito, the weather was spring-like, 70’s during the day and 60’s at night.

On Saturday we were assigned our furnished apartment, a large studio on the 6th floor (with 2-person elevator) that has a glass partition to separate the sleeping area.  Our windows overlook the tile roof-tops of the neighborhood to the West, with just the steeples of several churches protruding in front of the surrounding green mountains.  The basic kitchen consists of modern cabinets and a long granite countertop.

The AHI group arranged a bus tour on Sunday (today) to near-by Gualaco that has a large fresh food market, and to Chordeleg which is known for its gold and silver jewelry.

The Gualaco market was an amazing collection of colorful stalls offering everything from fresh fruit and vegetables to eggs, potatoes, rice and corn.  The produce included quail and chicken eggs, bananas (of course), tree tomatoes, cherimoyo (deliciously sweet), chili peppers, huge radishes, and more, all in great abundance.  The vendors were indigenous Quichua women in white “Panama” hats, pigtails and colorful skirts.  We also visited the large meat market which featured cuy (Guinna pig) being roasted, chicken and roasted whole pig.  There we ate a typical plate of roast pork , lettuce & posole.

In Chordeleg we visited the jewelry exhibit which contains the “world’s largest earring” made of silver, about 4′ high and made the rounds of the dozens of  shops with their dazzling array of gold and silver jewelry.

The AHI group consists of 34 people, mostly older couples, from diverse parts of the US.  Tomorrow we start Spanish classes at 8:30am at the Simon  Bolivar school, and will be assigned individual “life-style guides” and language tutors for the next 4 weeks.  More soon…