The Long Ecuadorian Adventure: Cuenca

Woke-up this morning and decided to try the yogurt with fruit again at Wildhorse Cafe around the corner. But we forgot that they are closed on Wednesdays. The yogurt sounded good to us because we both are still a little sick. We don't feel bad, but our digestive systems are not back to normal.

We decided to hit some of the pharmacies (there is one about every other block) to see if we could find a Pharmacist who spoke a little English. Once again, we feel fine, but it's been 7-days since we have not been "right". We did find an English speaking Pharmacist and we received another round of medicine to take. We take this for the next 5-days. A box for each of us was $7, so another $14 for medicine. I bet we have spent close to $40 on drugs on this trip.

We also dropped our laundry off, which is next door to the hostel, They weighed our dirty clothes (9lbs) and somehow that equated to a charge of $5.05.

As I said, the door to our hostel (La Casa Cuencana) is just a couple doors down. The portion of the hostel that we are staying in is pretty incognito. There is no sign, just a locked green door.

As soon as you unlock and open the door on the street, there is a second locked door that takes another key.

Then you enter an open area that they are still working on as a common area. They are adding a kitchen at the end of the room around the corner.

Then we head upstairs, where there is another door that has a lock, but it is not used.

Our room us on the 2nd floor, behind another locked door.

Our room is nice, clean and evidently safe. With tax it is $13.44 per person per night. There are only three rooms per floor and it's been pretty quiet - until someone comes or goes. It sounds like cell doors at a prison latching every time one is unlocked and open.

One thing that has given us great piece of mind has been our Pacsafe. It is a metal meshed bag wrapped in canvas. It has a carbon steel cable that allows us to pad lock our extra money, passports, laptop, iPad, and Kindle up while we are out. Someone with bolt cutters and a cutting touch could get into it - but for a normal evil-doer to take it, they will need a pipe wrench and various other plumbing tools to get it removed from the bathroom sink..

Since we missed breakfast, we decided to find a new almeurzo that we had read about that is located in a hotel. We found it, but we were a little early, so we found a park to hang out in for a while.

Around 11:30am, we headed to Don Colon's and were greeted by the man himself saying in perfect English, "Hey, how ya doing, come on in". Turns out that Don Corlon is an Ecuadorian who took off to American at the age of 18 to follow his dreams. He ended up in the restaurant business and owned a famous seafood restaurant in Naples Florida - that is now a local chain down there. He then moved to Cancun, Mexico and opened a successful restaurant there, but it was all blown away in a hurricane in 1989. He then moved back to Naples and opened a popular Mexican restaurant there - totaling 40-years in all. Last year he decided to move back to Ecuador and has this restaurant attached to a nice hotel.

Today's menu started with Carrot Soup and garlic bread.

Then we had a choice of a chicken or pork chop plate. I had the pork chop and Dana had the chicken. There was also fresh squeezed juice included.

Today's total: $4 per person. I left $8 on the table. Pretty nice lunch and good company. Don came over to our table as we finished our lunch and we talked for 30-minutes. He asked if we could mail a check to his daughter who is attending college in Tampa. We watched him write the check, seal the envelope and he gave Dana a fifty-cent piece for the stamp. If he mailed it from Ecuador, it would take nearly a month to get to the States - if it ever got there at all. We plan to head back to Don's one night for dinner this week before leaving. What a character! I wish we would have gotten a photo of him. He had a panama hat on and looked just like you would imagine.

Our next chore for the day is to find Dana some shoes to ride the horse with tomorrow. All she has is sandal type shoes, which won't work when riding. The riding place suggested that she buy some cheap rubber boots, which is a good idea - but as far as we can tell, the nearest place to buy rubber boots is about seven miles away. The store that we are looking for is called Coral and it's a lot like a Wal-mart.

So we decided to hail a cab, which is not too hard to do - there are hundreds of them in the city. The trick is negotiating a fare while the cab is pulled over. Typically a Gringo gets a $1 surcharge because they usually pay it. I fully expected that we would be paying $4-5, but somehow we got him to take us for $3.50. I know, what is the big difference between $3.50 and $4-5? Well, it's a big deal here to get the best deal that you can for a taxi. The fare around town used to be $2 for just about anywhere in town. But as the masses started to pay a little more and a little more, the standard fare around town is teetering between $3-4.

Got to Coral and it was much like a 2-storied Wal-mart. Some things were cheap, but many more things seem like they cost a little more than back home - especially anything name brand that had to be brought in .
Here are some things that we saw:

Laundry Detergent in Plastic Bags

All Milk is in Aseptic Boxes on the Shelf

And yes, there is Boone's Farm Wine. The Beer display were just a couple loose bottles - no multiple packaging.

Cereals

Eggs are also not refrigerated - just sitting on the shelf

We found the rubber boots - they were $9.25. Instead of taking a taxi back, we decided to try the bus. I read a little about the Cuenca buses online the night before and knew the #18 bus passed by the Coral and close to the Park Calderon. All buses in Cuenca are .25-cents. So you jump on, drop you quarter in and try to find a seat. All went well, but once we got on the bus, we had to stand. Every row had someone sitting in the aisle seat - and no one in the window seat. So only half the seats are used. But it all worked like a charm and we made it back to town for .50-cents.

Since we had to walk through Park Calderon to get back to the hostel, we decided to have some more ice cream.

Brownie with ice cream and Lime Sorbet - $4

We ended the day by walking along the river, which is down a set of stairs at the end of our street. This is rolling water from the Andes Mountains and is one of the four rivers that flow through Cuenca. Yes, there is suppose to be trout in these waters, but I have never seen anyone fishing.