CUENCA CELEBRATION 2020

Well, much has happened in the world since I last posted the first post of my brother Leo's visit to Cuenca, followed by our travel to Peru, and then I and some friends continued on to Argentina, while Leo returned to the Chicago area.  The Coronavirus and the world's reaction to it is  like we passed through a time warp; or what life was like just a week or two ago is like a parallel universe to the almost total lock-down in Ecuador now.  Needless to say, I have all the time in the world to work on my blog.

In late January, when my brother arrived, and which now seems like eons ago, we had spent a very enjoyable evening with my good friends, Gil and Deborah Castle, as we celebrated Gil's seventieth birthday. What better place to celebrate than at Tiesto's Restaurant, owned by Juan Carlos, who is the many times award-winning chef of one of the best and most popular restaurants in Cuenca.

The Birthday Boy and His Lovely Wife,

Gil and Deborah Castle

If one knows the right thing to order, Tiesto's has possibly the best and most tender steaks in Cuenca.  The word, tiesto, describes the preparation of the meals in clay pots. The right order allows the customers to be presented with medallions of steaks with different sauce toppings of choice from an Italian variation, to blue cheese, to mustard, to a delicious sweet sauce, etc.  

The waiter minced no words when he announced that the steaks would be served medium rare.  Truly a man who knows how a steak should be served.

There are many side dishes that are served with the main dishes.  The meals are first served with bread and various tasting sauces.  One does not leave Tiesto's hungry.

My brother, Leo on the right, and me to the left.

On another evening in Cuenca, Leo and I dined with my good friends, Mike and Betty Jones.  We had dinner at Cafe Alonso Gourmet Restaurant, in the Alcazar Hotel.  Elegant and beautiful, with a garden setting that extends to a large courtyard garden to the rear of the restaurant, which we very much enjoyed as we strolled the garden after dinner.  Many evenings, especially on Wednesday's, the hotel has a baby grand piano or other entertainment with light snack offerings like smoked salmon, various hors d' oeuvres, and salads; in a courtyard setting surrounded by the wood carved balconies and staircase.     Even the  coffee shop is adorned with exquisite, imported Italian marble furniture.  Mansion Alcazar is one of the most attractive boutique hotels in the city.

Mike and Betty Jones at Cafe Alonso.

Yes, the steak below was quite good.

Our last Sunday in Cuenca before leaving for Lima, my friend, Esteban Arevalo, who also was about to lead a tour to Argentina with a group of about fifteen expats at the time I would be returning to Cuenca from Argentina; took my brother and me to a high hill area that I had never been to before to get an aerial view of outlying Cuenca valleys.  The view offered us a different perspective from the usual Turi view that most tourists see when they take the city bus tour.

Much of the valleys are open spaces; but towns, some old, and other new developments are filling up the valleys.   I find it  sad to see the beauty of the valleys destroyed.

                  James and Leo

                 James and Esteban

Much to our surprise, there were vaqueros riding horses on the hillside in circles.  We never had the chance to talk with them, and had no idea what they were doing.  

Our destination for the day was to Dos Chorreras Restaurant, about a twenty minute ride to outside from Edificio Palermo  where I live in Cuenca and before one enters the Cajas National Park.

I absolutely love this hotel and restaurant.  I did a blog post on it a few years ago, and for anyone interested you can click on the link below or copy and paste it in the URL, and see the magnificent architectural gem, surrounded by the mountains with its interplay of nature and interior design.  The place is even nicer now than it was then.

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/111741036841400152108/album/AF1QipPlh4UUXwh3G2P9z31167-cGd53DPZhpTT8ThFs      

Our goal was to enjoy the Sunday buffet at Dos Chorreras, whose current price is $25 and well worth it.

There  are many side dishes, salads, and tasty sauces as seen in the three photos below:                                               

The Main Entree Table of Excellent Trout, the specialty of Dos Chorreras,  roast pork with an assortment of potatoes, breads, soups, and cerviche. 

The restaurant has a number of different levels, dining rooms, bar areas, and a reception hall.  The buffet is in a separate area from the other dining areas.

The cerviche was hands-down the best cerviche I ever had, whether in Ecuador or Peru.  My companions and I loved it.  It was the first time any of us had cerviche with a milk base.  Rich with shrimp, and as memory serves possibly some corvina.  Two servings of cerviche were not out of place, even with all that there was to eat.

Room for dessert wasn't easy, but we each made the supreme sacrifice, and tried practically one or more of each.

When I returned from my trip to Argentina and Peru, and told my friends, Michael and Betty Jones about the buffet at Dos Chorreras, they were very excited and want to try it ASAP.  Ironically, we rode out there last Sunday, on a perfectly beautiful day, and had a marvelous meal and a marvelous time.  They were very pleased.  I say, ironically, because the next day, this past Monday, was the beginning of closing everything down because of the coronavirus.

When I had visited a month earlier with Esteban and Leo, I noticed that Dos Chorreas added a new building, which is a large pastry, candy, and ice cream shoppe.  Having put away the desserts at the buffet, we didn't bother to visit the shoppe.  However, with Mike and Betty, we stopped by, and we were amazed at its attractiveness, size, and variety.  It truly is a sweet shoppe for any kid or adult who is young at heart.

Below is a convertible Cadillac from the 1960's.                            

Did I mention it was a candy shoppe as well.  Hardly an understatement, with candy bars from our childhood that we had no idea were still being produced.

Donuts and pastries prepared on site.

Awesome scenery while one indulges in whatever sweet delight of their choosing.

Michael above, just making a purchase.  Betty presiding over the dug out canoe of goodies.  

                                                                                                     

The three  of us were mesmerized by the mules in front of the pastry shoppe.  We are accustomed to seeing llamas and alpacas around the grounds, even horses.  We've never seen a mule like this long haired shaggy creature.  Yep, it's a mule, not some shaggy mountain goat.

 

No doubt much has changed in a week.  The world was due for an economic reset, I thought it most likely would not come until after the autumn elections.  However the virus changed all that.  What tomorrow brings is anybody's guess.  Ecuador, economically, is very fragile and vulnerable, there may be many impending changes.  

The weather here has been incredibly warm, sunny, and dry since last weekend.  I think last Monday evening may have been the last time we had rain.  Such weather is very rare in cloudy Cuenca, and especially during what is now suppose to be the rainy season.  On one hand, it is sad that folks can't be out enjoying the sunshine and warmth.  On the other hand, my windows are flung wide open.  I listen to the tranquility of the day, interspersed by the crowing rooster in the afternoon, and to the almost total silence of the night.  Even the barking dogs that my brother, Leo, complained so much about have no one to bark at.  The sunny weather truly prevents the days from being gloomy under any circumstances, and especially under the current circumstances.  I am truly blessed.  In the meantime, all of you take care of each other, and stay very safe.

Celebrate, Celebrate, Dance to the Music!

Oh man! Talk about time flying. It’s already been a week ago today that I spent the day in Quito getting my sedula and censo. I swear it feels like I was just there two days ago.

My attorney was Gabriela Espinosa. I arrived to her new office, where she relocated her staff in early August. Gabriela’s new address is 18 de Septiembre E7-26 y 6 de Diciembre office 82. Before I could even approach the building receptionist/security, a young man behind me introduced himself as Andreas and announced that he was Gabriela’s assistant. He speaks English very well. We made a short stop in Gabriela’s office, procured what files we needed and we were off and running. The censo was taken care of first. Andreas went ahead to meet with officials to be sure they would have my birth place in the computer, so the process would not be hampered when my turn came up to answer the questions on the form, since my place of birth was not likely to be already listed in the computer.

The next stage was the long process. Over 400 people with numbers ahead of ours. The waiting was going to be hours. Andreas disappeared for about forty minutes to take care of paper work unrelated to my case. When he returned we talked for about thirty minutes. With still over 200 numbers to go, I suggested we go across the street where there was an arena. The entire front of the arena was ensconced with one restaurant after another, with the vast majority of them in the fast food milieu. We stopped at a Chinese restaurant. I assumed it was a franchise, because we went up to the counter and had a choice of about eight different meals from which to choose, as they were displayed on the wall high above the counter. Andreas and I both went for the “Big Buddha”. We highly recommend it. Lot’s of variety of tantalizing, generous portions on the plate. The dinners were quite good by Ecuadorian standards of Chinese cuisine. We followed lunch with about a six block walk, anything to prevent us from having to return and sit any longer than was necessary. It wasn’t too long after our return that our number was called and the sedula business was taken care of.

Andreas did say that criminal records are now once again required by those seeking residency in Cuenca, but medical records continue not to be required as they once were.

We returned to Gabriela’s office. I signed a form giving them power of attorney, so they could pick up my sedula and send it to me with a routing number where I would need to pick the sedula up at the Cuenca Airport. Just take it for granted that you will have to call the law firm to determine when the sedula was forwarded to you and what the routing number is. I picked up my luggage and headed out of the office to discover that there was a monster storm raging outside. Then it began to hail heavily. Not golf ball size, but large enough and plentiful enough to encapsulate Quito in a sheet of white that reminded me of Chicago in March when one might find everything suddenly covered in an half an inch of snow. It was such a stunner, after such a beautiful day of sunny weather.

At the slightest hint of a slow-down in the rain, I realized I had to get about fifty feet from the front of the office building over to the corner to hail a cab. By the time I reached the corner the rain was mercilessly pounding down again, and the streets were so cover in water that I didn’t think any cab would come close enough to the curb for me to throw my luggage and myself into the taxi. Almost immediately, a cab stopped to pick me up. I was surprised, because the driver already had a female passenger sitting in the front seat with him. They both were cordial. We attempted some conversation, but the language gulf was too big.

The fifteen minute ride took fifty minutes to the airport. The streets were flooded something awful. I hadn’t seen flooding this pervasive since my monsoon days in Mumbai back in the 70’s. Of course, Mumbai had no storm sewers back then. Some shop keepers were using push-brooms to keep the water from flooding into their store entrances. For other shop keepers, it was a lost cause. Their sidewalk levels were lower than the street, and the water forged its way right into the stores. At times I saw children pounding around with their shoes in the hail, and attempting to pick it up just like kids would pick up snow in the states.

The flight was twenty minutes delayed. I arrived in Cuenca. There had been no rain, let alone a storm. Everything was Cuenca. Everything was tranquil.

I was now a resident of Ecuador, and more excitedly a genuine Cuencaneo. Mucho orgullosomente! My good friends Gil and Deborah Castle threw me, and Larry and Karen Schunk a celebration dinner in honor of the three of us just completing our residency process. With Deborah cooking one of her fabulous meals, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer evening. (Sorry D, P, S, and L back in the states. No photos of the celebration.) I’M A CUENCANO! VIVA CUENCA!

The Sands of Time

As I returned to La Cuadra II one day last week, the power was temporarily out. Since the elevator wasn't working, I climbed the stairs. Upon ascending the stairs I met Valerie. Suddenly the power was restored, and Valerie invited me to meet her husband, Wil. I dropped by briefly for introductions, and then this week stopped by their condo for an evening of conversation. Talk about six degrees of separation! What were the odds that Valerie and Wil, who not only live in Cuenca, but also reside on the same floor in the same building in Cuenca as myself; would be from the same city of Valparaiso back in the states? We never knew each other in Valparaiso. We had to come to Cuenca to meet. Wil and Valerie are busily renovating a second floor residence in colonial El Centro, where they plan to move upon its completion. They both want to be closer to the action. I wish them the best in their endeavor.

I had a very fine dinner last night with Brian and Shelley at their place, as we also visited with Orilla and Garth from Canada. Brian and Shelley have really been great to me, and I very much appreciate their friendship and kindness. Freddi was her perfect self, and Brian really knows how to handle himself in the kitchen.

Today Gil, Deborah, and myself were driven up to Ingapirca by Fabian Aris Borque. For anyone new to Cuenca, or may be planning to travel to Cuenca in the near future, Fabian is your go-to hombre for travel excursions, and he will even pick you up in Guayaquil and transport you to Cuenca from the Guayaquil Airport if you so desire. Fabian speaks fluent English, has lived in the states, Chicago, of course. Fabian is amiable, and knows his way around Cuenca and all the outlying sites, and his rates are reasonable. His telephone number is 0991 078 135. His email is sonialv@etapaonline.net.ec. He is well-known and well-respected in the expat community.

We were blessed with a young Ecuadorian guide, Susanna, who spoke fluent English, and who had the challenge of presenting the entire 90 minute tour in both English and Spanish to accommodate the language needs of people in her group. Ingapirca is the largest and oldest Inca ruin in Ecuador. Typical of human history; one group, the Incas, conquer another group, the Canari. Intermarriage and assimilation of cultures take place. Unfortunately, for the Incas, their ascendancy in Ecuador lasted less than a century, as they would soon give way to their conquest by the Spaniards.

The ride back to Cuenca was exciting. Fabian knows the back roads, when road construction becomes a travel problem. What prevents him from frequently replacing his shocks, axles, and suspension system as he maneuvers around and through the pot holes, gravel roads, and uneven road inclinations is beyond me. Fabian jockeys for position in typical Ecuadorian driving-style around autos and trucks which approach each other on one lane roads; while mental determination is made as to who sits, who moves in reverse, who attempts to pass whom in the narrow corridor of dusty rural roads. I love it! Fabian was at his finest moment like the matador who challenges the bull who rears forward at the site of the matador's cape, as Fabian waits for a truck to pass him and as he encourages the driver on. The driver for better or for worse thought better of the challenge, and put his truck in reverse and pulled back to a point where before he had the opportunity to bring himself to a halt, Fabian was already racing around him. I did see a site I never expected to observe in Ecuador. One driver actually stopped and waved for us to make the turn first. The main highway is being reconstructed and widened, and should be quite nice once the construction work is completed. Meantime, traffic in two directions often in one lane--very interesting, very interesting, indeed. Yet the negotiation of transportation seems to ultimately work itself out just fine among all the drivers.

The trip back from Ingapurca is especially nice. We were now moving from a higher altitude to a lower altitude. As we descended, we were able to experience the full appreciation of the beautiful landscape from a panoramic view. We could see just how rich the farmland is, and the multiples of truck farm products to which the soil is put to use. We were amazed at the numbers of homes along the mountainsides, and the large number of new homes that have or were being built. The weather also warmed, and we began to strip off the extra layers of clothes that were definitely needed in the higher altitude of Ingapirca, which also proved to be quite windy.

We eventually made our way back to Cuenca and the entire excursion, which included about an hour for lunch took about seven hours. Our lunch at Ingapirca was the traditional Ecuadorian meal: a big bowl of the delicious potato soup, beef, rice, potatoes, and a fresh fruit juice drink. The meal for all four of us was just seven dollars.

Unfortunately, our return to Cuenca meant saying "Hasta luego" to Gil and Deborah, who are returning to San Francisco on Friday, and will not return to Cuenca until November. Their departure was also a reminder of my own soon-to-be departure, as the sand in the hour-glass is quickly receding. Hopefully, we will all be together again.