Friday - Mercado and Jazz

One of our goals on this visit was to shop at the Mercado for meat, fruits and vegetables so we could cook in our apartment on some evenings. We visited the Mercado earlier in the week and bought a few fruits - but it was a bit overwhelming and we cheated and only purchased the pre-bagged items that are typically the set price of $1.  Plus, we didn't know what half of the fruits and vegetables were.

On Thursday, Dana ran across a website that had a program for the ins and outs of shopping at the Mercados.  After a couple emails, we arranged to meet Suzanne Thurston at her apartment Friday morning. In fact they have several programs that look very helpful if you might be thinking about ultimately moving to Cuenca.  The website is:  http://cuenca-ecuador-retirement.com/

We followed Suzanne's email directions to her apartment, which was actually a penthouse on top of building that housed various offices and a hostel. Her penthouse apartment was fantastic - with big windows with extraordinary views.  The apartment had a large living area, a large bedroom, two baths, an office and a nice kitchen area.  It was hard for me to judge the square footage - all I can say is that is was BIG.

The only negative thing that Suzanne mentioned was access to hot water in her bathrooms and kitchen. That is evidently a common problem down here in older apartments. While propane gas to potentially heat hot water is relatively cheap ($3 delivered for a large tank), the returnable tanks are in horrible shape, often leak and most older apartments don't have sufficient ventilation to safely accommodate propane.

The common solution is electric shower head - often referred to a Suicide Shower.  Here is a photo I took of Suzanne's electric shower head - installed by an Ecuadorian Electrician.

Electrical wires, splices protected by duct tape, disappear into the ceiling

Suzanne turned on the shower for me and sure enough, there was hot water coming out in about 15-seconds. Not bad, but a little scary. Suzanne had a smaller unit mounted on her kitchen faucet. But that one kept shocking her and she finally had the electrician disconnect it. So now she is transporting a bowls of hot water from the shower, and using a coffee pot to heat hot water in the kitchen.  

Suicide Showers are pretty common in Latin America and they probably are all suspect on how they were installed. I found this entertaining blog about how to approach them: http://johnnyvagabond.com/travel-tips/survive-suicide-shower/

After the penthouse tour, we headed off to the Mercado. On the way, we stopped at a "smoothie" drink stand in a plaza outside Suzanne's building.  Suzanne collected a jar of jar of semillas de papaya (raw papaya seeds). Suzanne uses the raw seeds for the fresh enzymes to help digest protein. In a heath food section you'll see Papaya Enzymes sold in the US for $20-$30 a bottle. In Cuenca, because of her relationship with the vendor running the stand.

We also passed a herb shop (didn't take a photo) with bags and bags of dried herbs. Problem was that non of the bags were labeled, so you would have to ask for them in Spanish. No doubt, if you are going to shop outside the supermarkets, you are going to have to learn Spanish.  Suzanne has lived in Cuenca for over two years and speaks Spanish well, but she is still taking classes and is always learning.

We visited Mercado 10 de Agosto (10th of August), a different Mercado than the one we visited earlier in the week. We first visited the meat section. Like most Mercado shoppers, Suzanne had her favorite vendors that she had been using for the past two years. When you have a relationship with a vendor, you get much better selection and better prices.  Suzanne ordered a kilo of beef liver and a pound of cubed beef - all very fresh and I believe it cost around $5.

 

It may be a little difficult for Gringos to get over the fact that there is no refrigeration of the meat - and that the indigenous woman handling that meat doesn't wear gloves or a hair net.  But everything does seem clean (even though I saw no one using disinfectant) and there are no bad odors and smells in the entire meat market.  It seems all to be fresh.

We were at the Mercado for over 2-hours and saw no other Gringos shopping there. We did see a tour group shuffle by. I think most Gringos are just too overwhelmed by the whole thing. The crazy thing is that you walk by booth after booth of people selling the exact same items - whether it's meat, fruits, grains or vegetables.  Of course you look at the product for freshness and variety - but after that, you basically choose a vendor that you "connect" with.  That made sense, the vendor that Dana and I chose earlier in the week to buy our fruit from smiled at us and made eye contact as we walked by. With no posted prices, that's about all you have to go on until you establish a relationship with a vendor.

As we were about to go upstairs to go through the fruits and vegetables, we noticed a group of people off to the side, waiting their turn for something that we had never seen before. Suzanne explained that it was an indigenous ritual to remove bad "spirits" from the body. There were men, women and children (especially children) in line for this strange ritual performed by a group of short, plump indigenous women.

Suzanne sat down on a short bench and this 4' indigenous woman gathered a bouquet of weeds, grasses and blooms and started by rubbing the bouquet together and having Suzanne smell the aroma.  Then the woman started whacking Suzanne head to toe with the bouquet, while hissing.  Then she grabbed a raw egg and rubbed it all over her. When finished with that, she cracked the egg (evidently able to read the yolk) and then took a bottle of who knows what and took swigs and spit it onto Suzanne.  All for the cost of $3.

  Suzanne and a little girl getting the ill-temperament beat out of them

When Suzanne got up, she sat Dana down. Here is what happened to her...

Next, we had a chance to ask about this stuff we have been seeing served in cream cones, but obviously it's not ice cream. Suzanne bought one and it turned out to be something like "Fluff" - that stuff made from Cool Whip and Jell-O.

Don't know what they call it - but it's like our "Fluff"

We ended-up on the Food Court section of the Mercado and Suzanne knew of a place that had good Tamales for .50/each. There were really good! We also got a glass of warm tea, a South American version of Horchata brewed from bouquets of local flowers and herbs - similar to the ones that Dana and Suzanne were excised with.

Fifty-cent Tamales and Warm Horchata Tea

Then we went back to shopping. One of the vendors that Suzanne uses regularly let us try some samples of fruit that we had never heard of - or tasted. They were all excellent. Still a lot to learn. Every now and then I seem to hear someone say something like, "this has a very nice sweet taste, but be careful of the seeds, they can kill you!" 

Granadilla (passion fruit) looks like fish eggs

Guanabana (graviola in Brazil; soursop in the US) looks like a dinosaur egg with black spines;  the leaves of this plant are anti-carcinogenic

Litchi (lychee in Chinese) looks like a red fuzzy ball; big seed inside.  Is used in sweet and sour pork by the Chinese.

While we didn't buy a lot, we did learn a lot.  We had a good time and highly recommend Suzanne's program on how to shop at the Mercado.

Avocados - 3 for $1

Tomatoes - 7 for $1

Lettuce - 1 for $1

Onions - 4 for .50

Limes - 10 for .50

Later that night we attended a Jazz concert at the Jazz Society of Ecuador. They rent a room above a pizza restaurant.  The star of the show was "Sweet' Sue Terry, a world-renowned jazz saxophonist who lives in Cuenca 6-months every year teaching jazz to young Ecuadorians. It was great music and a good time - and it was a special concert since Sue is flying back to the States Saturday. No photos, we didn't take the camera since we were out late at night (just in case). But on that subject, we have talked to dozen plus Gringos this week and no one that we've talked to has had any problems being out and about.