So What's Cuenca REALLY Like?

You know the old saying that when something seems too good to be true---it probably is.  All the websites touting Cuenca's virtues make it sound so darned perfect---year-round springlike weather, couples living on $600 per month, enjoying fresh fruit on the balcony overlooking the beautiful colonial architecture.  These sites are selling something--real estate, tours, books--so it's easy to be skeptical about such idealized descriptions.

We wanted to discover the real Cuenca, so here we finally were after the misadventures described in the previous post.  Our initial impression was somewhat jarring.  The cobblestone streets are narrow and one-way.  The main ones are crowded and noisy.  Buses spew noxious black exhaust clouds.  Uh-oh.

Then after getting settled in our room we went out exploring a bit and came back disappointed because the area we walked around in seemed rundown and dingy.  We found no suitable goods and services, only small shops selling stuff like bootleg DVD's and Chinese tennis shoes.  Yikes, what had we gotten ourselves into?

Well, I'm happy to report that I've pretty much gotten all the negative news out of the way early.  First, our hotel.  The Casa Ordonez is delightful.  It's an old family home converted into what's called a hostel there.  That translates to "flophouse" in America, but we would more accurately label it a B&B--clean, comfortable rooms and a full breakfast.

Alberto Ordonez, his sister Inez, and their mom go absolutely out of their way to make sure you are happy.  And the way these homes are designed with a gate, heavy doors, and open central courtyard blocks out all the street noise.  We highly recommend this hotel as your base camp.

We quickly learned that initial impressions can be deceiving.  When everything's different it's paradoxically all the same.  Subsequent walks (and we walked a LOT) demonstrated  that while, yeah, the buildings and people may appear similar, a few blocks in one direction or the other or even one street over sometimes revealed pleasant surprises.

The weather is exactly as described:  mid-70's during the day, mid-50's at night.  Low humidity.  No bugs (apparently they're not happy at 8000').  The sun rises and sets at 6:02 every day.

The food is plentiful and inexpensive.  The markets have many fruits we've never seen before.  The meat and produce aren't jacked up with hormones and bioengineering (a chicken actually looks like a chicken, not a small turkey).  We had lunches for $2 total (including tax & tip) with juice, soup, meat, 2 starches--always 2 starches--and dessert.  I took Cynthia out to the finest restaurant in the city, Villa Rosa, for our anniversary dinner.  Wow, it was a gorgeous restored mansion with an enclosed courtyard for the dining area.  A fabulous meal with wine set us back $40.  I mentioned to Cynthia on the walk back to the hotel that we've probably dropped more than that at Olive Garden!

In addition to little corner markets throughout the city there are 2 full-on supermarkets that have practically everything you would want.  Except we never saw celery or, oddly enough since Ecuador produces over 200 varieties of potatoes, sweet potatoes anywhere.  I kept looking for milk in the dairy section and finally realized they have the boxed kind on the shelf like in Europe.  That might take some getting used to.

We found a small outdoor mall with high-end shops, food court, and multiplex across the river from the historic area.  And a short distance out of town is a typical large enclosed mall with typical mall-looking stores.  But what's amazing there is this HUGE place called the Super Mercado that's like a combination Home Depot and Super WalMart carrying everything from clothing to food to bathtubs.  If you can't find what you need there, you don't really need it.

The mall food courts are, thankfully, the only spots in town with fast food.  But the prices are the same as here, so you'd pay the same for a Whopper, fries, and soft drink as a filet mignon dinner at a great restaurant.  You'd think the choice between KFC and Chilean sea bass would be obvious, but folks outside our country seem to love all things American. 

We were told the movies are in English with Spanish sub-titles.  Hope that's true--then we can enjoy the flick and practice our Spanish at the same time!  What else?  Museums,  universities, modern hospitals--all here; clothing, housewares, dry cleaners--ditto; need for a car--not here if you live downtown.  Everything is in walking distance, and cabs are $1-2 if you get tired or don't want to bother.

But the best thing we discovered about Cuenca, something you can never learn from tour books and websites, is the graciousness of its citizens.  So kind, so helpful, so----happy.  We walked around alone on foggy nights and never felt the least bit uneasy.  There was a free outdoor symphony concert we attended.  You know what?  It didn't sound like the London Philharmonic, but the beaming faces and civic pride was truly touching.

So that's it--a lot of good, a little bit of bad, and no ugly.  We arrived in Cuenca looking for reasons to talk ourselves out of this improbable adventure and left ready to take the plunge.  Do we have everything figured out?  Heck no.  Are we certain we're going to be happy in Ecuador?  Absolutely not.  When you do something extreme you should expect an extreme result, one way or the other.  So we're forging ahead anticipating a wonderful new life abroad and mindful that it may suck.  If so---we'll do something else.

Next time----OK, we're going.  Now what?

Day 0

Before we get to what's going on now in preparation for our move I want to first recap our exploratory trip to Cuenca last summer.  Day 1 was special because it didn't happen.  Well, of course it did happen, but what happened isn't what was supposed to happen.  But we're glad it happened anyway.  Let me explain.

I spent a great deal of time on several search engines putting our flights together.  I guess I have a Baby Bear (from Goldilocks and the-----) fetish about layovers---I don't like them too long, of course they can't be too short, so I want them "just right."

After exhaustive effort I patched together, with 3 different airlines, what appeared to be the perfect schedule.  My daughter, a much more seasoned traveler than me, warned that I was playing with fire not booking through a single site or, most preferably, a single airline.  "Don't worry about it, " I said with confidence.  "This is going to work out great!"

Well, guess what.  For a change I was right--sort of.  But the beginning of our trip went totally haywire anyway.

We first flew to LAX to board an Avianca airlines flight to Quito, Ecuador.  No problemo (see, I've been working on my Spanish).  Except that flight ended up leaving 3 1/2 hours late, creating the start of a very unusual day.

When I booked this flight it showed a somewhat mysterious "technical stop" at an undisclosed location.  I assumed this meant a quick refueling stop, maybe in Panama, where we stay on the plane, some folks would get off, some other folks would get on, and we'd be on our way to Quito.  I was sure I'd scheduled plenty of time in spite of our late departure to catch our connecting flight to Cuenca.  Silly me.

You know how we find it amusing when people who speak a different language than ours kind of mess up the translation? Well, it turns out our "technical stop" was a full-fledged layover in Bogata, Columbia, which would have still been fine except the flight to Quito had already left.  The next flight didn't leave until 4-something in the afternoon.  Before anyone could whine and complain the airline immediately shuttled us and some other travelers to a nice nearby hotel for the day.  Wow!  We got to shower, eat, and relax a bit before returning to the airport.

Security is a little different in Columbia than we're used to.  Instead of folks with white shirts and dark pants we  had to negotiate a phalanx of soldiers with scary-looking rifles.  Yikes!  Guys in one line, ladies in the other.  FULL patdown.  But, hey, we did get to keep our shoes on.

Guess what--the next flight was late leaving too and it was the last one to Cuenca (sigh).  I somehow managed to persuade the Avianca people to take care of us and not leave us stranded given the circumstances (quite a feat considering their limited English and my nonexistent Spanish).  They put us up for the night at a really nice Hilton, and we were given free meals and transportation back and forth.  Plus the young woman who assisted us was SO helpful; she was sick as a dog but insisted on standing with us outside the airport on a chilly night until our ride arrived. 

After a good night's sleep we caught an AM flight (also late---geez, welcome to Latin America, huh?) and finally made it to our planned hotel by noon.  We lost a day, but we gained so much by managing to stay calm and centered throughout the experience (in earlier times I would have totally Hulked ).  In this "is what it is" frame of mind we were open to receiving the kindness of so many total strangers who made a somewhat harrowing journey unexpectedly enjoyable.  It felt like the universe was truly supporting our direction.

America---Love It AND Leave It! (Part 2)

First, the response to this blog's reappearance has been phenomenal.  I'm honored that there appears to be considerable interest in our adventure and will attempt to reciprocate by keeping each post interesting.

Second, a quick disclaimer is in order.  Cynthia took issue with my liberal use of the word "we" in the previous entry, so for the record this blog reflects my views and observations only, and I will be more diligent in correct pronoun usage from this point forward.  Translation:  OOPS!!

In our previous episode we had decided to leave the US but didn't know where we wanted to go.  Early research revealed that a lot of places are as or more expensive to live than here.  Then for us there was the factor of weather.  Coming from the South we've never been fans of extreme cold.  After the first summer here in Vegas we quickly learned that scorching heat isn't our thing either.  Dry heat feels better?  True, but wet, dry, or in between 115 degrees is damned HOT!

Oh, there was also the distance factor--as in distance from our two Eastern time zone children.  Being an extremely close family we didn't want to reside so far from them that we'd rarely see each other, especially with grandchildren at least being talked about.

OK, inexpensive, great weather, and not too far away.  That pretty much narrowed the search to Latin America.  Cost-wise Costa Rica would have been a great choice 15 years ago; for Panama it seemed we were about 5 years too late.  Buenos Aires was really impressive until I looked it up on a map--must have been sleeping when I studied Argentina in geography.  Yikes, it's WAY down the coast of a really long country!

Then somehow, and I don't even remember how because this all happened so fast---somehow we looked at Ecuador.  And then we found Cuneca.  Or maybe Cuenca found us.

Low cost of living---definitely; spring-like weather year round---wow!; Eastern time zone and only a 6 hour non-stop flight to NY---perfect.  Plus Cuenca is a UNESCO World Heritage city with colonial buildings & cobblestone streets that reminded us of our previous home town of Charleston, SC.  About the same population (1/2 million) too.

So before we were even sure how to pronounce it (KOO-WANE'-KA) we booked flights to check it out.  Our plan was to schedule as little as possible so we could experience just being there.  Hopefully within 10 days anything glaringly wrong would reveal itself.

That didn't happen.  No amount of online investigation (of which I had done PLENTY) can reveal the spirit of a place and its citizens.  We found Cuenca to be even more charming than we expected, in large part because the people there are so incredibly kind and sweet-natured.

A lot of couples probably sit around with a glass of wine and dream together about---maybe---someday---just chucking it all and heading off to some faraway place.  Others, like several couples we met in Ecuador, actually take the next step, visiting and performing "due diligence."  But when it comes down to finally, irrevocably saying, "Yes, we're going to do this," very few pull the trigger.

We returned from Ecuador and said "yes."

America---Love It AND Leave It! (Part 1)

Except for lack of money there is much to enjoy about unemployment, including the free time to write.  Since I started a new job about a year ago this blog has "gone dark."

Everyone close to us knows that Cynthia and I are moving to Ecuador soon.  We are grateful for the support and encouragement we have received, yet I'm certain there are lingering questions about why two semi-reasonable people would do such a "crazy" thing.

So to allay fears that we've lost our minds and to perhaps help others who are contemplating a move abroad I want to officially declare this blog "open for business" again.  I'll begin by sharing the background of our decision; in future posts you'll follow the process (and believe me, it is a process) from that initial decision to packing and getting on the plane, which should happen in the next couple of months.

Last Memorial Day weekend, shortly after Cynthia had been "downsized" for the second time in 6 months, we were forced to take a hard look at our financial situation.  We quickly realized that the economic downturn had really knocked off course the excellent plans we had put in place several years earlier.

Have you ever watched "Let's Make a Deal?"  Like a contestant on that TV show we felt we had a choice of three doors:

DOOR #1 was to resign ourselves to severely scaled back "golden years."  ZONK!!!  Uh---no.

DOOR #2--work our butts off for--how long??--to hopefully achieve the retirement lifestyle we had envisioned.  That had always been our standard operating procedure in life--when knocked down, get up and brush yourself off; if bleeding, put a band-aid on it--whatever it takes.

This time, that word "hopefully" made us pause and reconsider.  Keeping it real, we aren't getting any younger, and one's health only holds up for so long.  What if, say, 10 years from now our finances still weren't where they needed to be and we'd urinated away perhaps the best decade we had left?  This was a risk we simply weren't willing to take.

That left us with DOOR #3---THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE!!!  How could we retire or at least semi-retire as soon as possible with the assets we still had?  Honestly, we'd been in the workforce for 40 years and the fire just wasn't in our bellies to keep chasing a dollar all day every day.  It's not that we wanted to do--nothing; we're at a point where we'd prefer to spend our time doing what we want to do instead of what we have to do.  Who doesn't feel that way, right?  Now we were ready to create that reality instead of continuing to wish, hope and dream.

Several friends have speculated that our imminent departure was some sort of anti-America statement.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We love this country, but staying in the US isn't our best option financially, and there's really no place here where we have a burning desire to reside anyway.  So let's see, that leaves---the rest of the world!!

In Part 2 I'll share how and why we decided on, of all places, Cuenca, Ecuador??  Until then-----

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN

On the day of President Obama's national address Congressman John Lewis from Georgia announced a bold new initiative he called the “Stimulate Your Package” plan. The thrust of the program would provide vouchers to American men redeemable for free Viagra.

“In this economy people ain’t going out and spending no money,” he said. “If they’re staying home, they might as well have a good time.”

Lewis was recently chastised for reversing his position on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He explained, “When y’all was talking about closing GitMo I thought you meant welfare or something. In my district they be saying they need to git mo’ food stamps and git mo’ unemployment checks.”

Early reaction to the announcement indicates rare bipartisan support. Former President Bill Clinton said, “I think it goes without saying where I stand on this important issue.” Vice-President Joe Biden, known to repeat his words, outdid himself when he remarked, “It’s hard out there right now for hard-working Americans, and it’s even harder for guys who have a hard time getting hard. Did I say that? What did I say?”

Stiff opposition is expected from women’s rights groups. But Kandi Cane, prostitute advocacy spokesperson, said her group, Chicks for Tricks, is not among them. “Woo hoo,” was her reaction to the news. “Our girls give it a ‘two legs up’!”

Pfizer, maker of Viagra, will soon promote the initiative by distributing free lapel pins with the familiar blue triangular shape. Company official Woodrow “Woody” Mourning said, “Stimulate Your Package” is what we need to get Americans off their feet. This is the change Pfizer has been waiting for.”

Celebrities have been quick to respond. Rapper Snoop Dogg, known for his album Doggystyle, uttered a string of noises that all ended with “izzle.” Contacted on his couch, reclusive TV star Butthead commented, “Uh-h-h-huh-huh-huh-----you said-------package.”

As of this writing the position of missionaries is unknown but expected to remain horizontal.

WHY IT'S GOOD TO HAVE B.O.

We’re constantly inundated with the results of new studies about everything under the sun. Who thinks of these things, who’s paying for them (I hope to God it’s not us taxpayers), and how can you really trust the findings? Oat bran—it’s good for you—no it’s not—well, maybe it is. Vitamin E---the miracle cure for whatever ails you—oops, scratch that, and quit taking supplements too. Geez, experts, will you make up your damn minds?

Here are two new studies relating to men that caught my eye. One claims that smarter men not only have more brainpower but also more and better sperm. I don't know about you, but as I’ve traveled down the Yellow Brick Road of life I’ve encountered a LOT more scarecrows than Wizards. Perhaps we can surmise that intelligent guys’ thoughts are centered between their ears whereas knuckleheads are focused more between their legs. Unfortunately quantity is winning out over quality and it seems inmates are taking over the asylum. Everywhere I go I feel more and more like that kid in The Sixth Sense---I see dumb people.

Another study claims women can tell the difference between a man’s “regular” smell and his “sexual” smell. I’ve gotta doubt the validity of this one from the get-go. When I was in high school my scent surely approximated that of a rabbit in heat but the only scoring I managed was on my SAT. Must have been wearing too much English Leather cologne.

Speaking of which, check out the methodology of this study. Men were asked not to wear anything scented for two days, including deodorant. One day they placed a pad under their armpits that collected sweat while doing sexual things like watching pornography; the next day they switched to a dry pad when they were not doing sexual things. Then women actually smelled both of the pads while hooked up to a machine that recorded their brain waves.

Wow. I don’t know about you, but one day without deodorant and I’m pretty “ripe.” After two days I’d smell like a rotting corpse. You might not be surprised to learn that the women reacted differently to the pads. In the first case areas of the brain were activated related to emotion, smell, and social response. As in, “Yikes. This guy reeks. Get me out of here so I can puke!.” The non-sexual smells didn’t activate this area of the brain. What did you expect, you intellectual idiots—the poor women were catatonic!

Taken at face value perhaps we can conclude from these two studies that smart men should watch lots of porn and stop wearing deodorant, thereby increasing the chances of unleashing their superior spermpower on the ladies and producing outstanding offspring (unless they hook up with the checkout girl at Dollar General--then all bets are off). Guys, go forth and stultify. And hey, dummies, I may have an old bottle of Canoe around here somewhere for you. We need you to stop---and smell like roses.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

Why is it that everybody slows down on the freeway when a cop has pulled someone over and his lights are flashing? Wake up, people---he’s busy! If there was ever a time to step on the gas and get a little crazy, it’s now. Do you really think he’s going to leave the other guy on the side of the road, jump back in his patrol car and come after you? Drop the Pavlovian response and take at least a stroll on the wild side.

There’s a sign on the door of the post office that says, “No pets allowed. Seeing-eye dogs only.” Leave it to our government to create a written message specifically for the only people who can’t read it.

Really smart people sent astronauts to the moon. They can put all the words in the Library of Congress on the head of a pin. So why hasn’t anybody ever been able to come up with a better way to get a damn milk carton open? Nothing has changed since I was getting those little containers in the cafeteria in elementary school. It takes a crowbar and chisel to get the stupid things open, and the triangular spout ends up mutilated beyond recognition. The best idea anyone can think of is to put a hole in the side of the top with a cap on it? That’s how prisoners break out of jail, for godsakes; we’ve gotta be able to do better than that.

Any oddities you’d like to share?