Ecuador

¡¿How are you?! ¡I´m fine! ¡¿Who knew upside-down punctuation was so much fun?!  ¿Can your keyboard do this: ¡!¡!¡!¡!?

Enough.  My one-week update:

I am in Cuenca, a charming, laid-back town in the Andes at a mere 7000 feet.  The mountains rise around the town and play ping-pong with the clouds.  It rains every day, anything from a few gotas to downpour, with sun splashes in between. Unfortunately there´s no daily weather schedule, so at any given time you have to be prepared for everything from chilly driving rain to sun that reminds you that you´re at the world´s waistline. 

Because of the mountains the town is fairly isolated from mass tourism, which is lovely.  I haven´t seen a tourbus yet, but maybe that´s because your conventional tourist doesn´t necessarily plan a trip to Cuenca in the rainy season.

The architecture here is colonial, with neo-classical details painted green, blue, pink, whimsical and charming. And they have a system of numbering addresses that´s really quite ingenious. The city layout is a grid and each address has the number of the block AND the number of the building, so if you´re at 7-13 Mariscal Sucre Street, and you have five minutes to get to 2-13, you know you have 5 blocks to go and are going to be late for your Spanish lesson...

Speaking of which, I´m taking lessons one-on-one with a lovely lady who decided in the middle of class today that we would leave the past participle and have a salsa dancing break.  Frankly, I´m more comfortable with past participles, but I´ll take the cultural lesson, too.  Watch out, Blue Hill, I´m gonna come back all sassy and hip-swinging.

(Speaking of coming back, for those of you who haven´t been updated, my plans have changed and I´ll be home for only 2 weeks before heading off to grad school at Boston University in mid-June. No summer in Maine, but kate and I will carpool for weekend visits!)

As for my living situation, I´m sharing a flat with a beautiful view of the town (which means it´s way uphill from...everything (good for the cardiovascular system) with an Ecuadorian guy named Ruben and a Brit named Karen. He does graphic design and marketing and she teaches English. The rent is 90 bucks a month including cleaning service once a week and internet. Unreal.

 View from my digs

¿What else?

My Spanish is crap still, but I´m learning...

When Paula was still here we went to Cajas National Park on the weekend with Emma, which at 12,000 feet kicked all of our butts. Strange Andean flora and swampy landscape. We hitched a ride back to Cuenca on an empty school bus, and all fell asleep.  When the lady woke us up we were back in Cuenca and mightily confused.  Why are we on this school bus? Why is there a bunch of plantains next to me?

We also visited the jewelry shops of Chordeleg and the market in Gualaceo, where we passed up roasted guinea pig for roasted regular pig, which was delicious.  I suppose some day I´ll try the guinea pig, though I haven´t heard rave reviews...

 

There´s loads more to tell...  but I´ll leave it at that for now.