Local Gringo joke: What's the Cuencano definition of a "nanosecond?" The amount of time after a traffic light turns green before a taxi driver blows his horn.
But not on Sunday. This isn't because folks are nicer then because of the sabbath. No, Sunday is "family day" here and people generally stay home. Stores and even most restaurants are closed; there is very little traffic, so there's nothing to honk at.
The weather lately has been quite Seattle-esque (cloudy, cool, and rainy). Today, however, abundant sunshine and warm temps returned, so Cynthia and I took to the rooftop terrace books in hand to replenish our Vitamin D and enjoy a leisurely morning.
I couldn't help noticing how much quieter the city is. Even those damned roosters mentioned in an earlier blog seemed to be taking the day off. But there's one sound that, like our previous hometown of Las Vegas--like The Waffle House in our previous-previous hometowns of Charleston and Atlanta, never takes a day off. 24/7/365 you will hear car alarms going off.
Notice I said "alarms," not "alarm." While on the roof four times in 30 minutes (yes, I was curious and checked my watch). It appears the alarms here are set so sensitively that they go off if you even notice the car as you walk past it.
I have a theory that perhaps the vehicles here are possessed. Last weekend in the country the alarm of one person's car went off 5 times during the night (yes, I counted). Why did it do that? Why did it stop doing that? H-m-m-m-m--------.
There is apparently a monopoly on this product in Cuenca because EVERY alarm makes the exact same series of noises. OK, so here's my question: when an alarm is activated, wouldn't everyone in earshot think, "Oh, crap, someone's stealing my car!"
This doesn't appear to be the case, because I've yet to witness hordes of people rushing outside in response to the potential theft of their vehicle. More often than not no one does anything and the damn noise goes on and on and on. If an alarm is silenced quickly, you'll usually find the driver has somehow accidentally triggered it while starting his car. I've driven for 45 years and never done that--have you?
Our container has finally arrived and we'll be moving into our permanent apartment Tuesday. Well, that's not exactly true. Our apartment's not ready, so our stuff will be piled into the middle of it while we'll be camping out in another space in the same building temporarily with our bed and a couple of chairs.
1 comment:
Hi Edd and Cythina. It's Angie from Brandon's wedding. Glad you are both having fun in Cuenca! :)
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