Wednesday Mar 7/12 update
What a glorious sunny morning and it makes one want to get
outside. I wanted to go see Turi, to the
southwest, but I can’t find a 25c bus that goes there. There is this beautiful white church that is
lit up at night and I would love to see it.
The closest the buses go is to the Mall De Rio but I have no idea how
far it is from there, probably not more than a mile or two.
I woke Bella to see if she would be willing to join me to El
Valle to the southeast where our main bus, the #15 ends and she was agreeable,
but wants to go one further, also take the #19 or #8 to San Joaquin. Our Coopera medical plan basically dictates
that our Dr. Pena, and our dentist, are in San Joaquin, For $4.72 per month we can get 70-80% of our
medical bills covered up to a maximum of $400 each. That goes a long way here.
We are nearing our longest day (twice a year here) at 2.53
degrees south of the equator. Today the
sun’s path is over 4.19 degrees south so it will be directly overhead in a few
days. It took me a while to find a site
with this information, but it is at
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html. I took a couple of shots about 1:30 during
our trip and there was almost no shadow.
The trip to El Valle isn’t that far but it is uphill all the
way and it is so picturesque as we travel upwards between two huge
valleys. We got off the bus at the top
and walked over to where we saw some baby lambs. They must have just been recently born as one
was still trailing remains of its umbilical cord and was pretty unsteady on its
tiny hooves. Then we started walking
down and the first thing that struck us was the wonderful quietness. Traffic is really far apart and there is no
industry, just some house construction here and there so it is really
peaceful. If a person had a car, this
is one place to enjoy living.
Naturally the valleys are green, green, green and the
surrounding hills are too. There is an
unusual plateau to the south that did not seem to have any buildings but we
suspect there may be a small airstrip there.
There is a huge townhouse complex on a hillside and some new
developments and a country club on the lowers portions. Higher up there is a beautiful convention
center/meeting hall called the Olive Garden that was just gorgeous inside and
had breathtaking views.
Once we got to Huyana Capac we were going to catch the #8 or
#19, whichever arrived first, which was the #8.
Bella wanted to take it to both ends of its route so we started by going
northwest into the industrial area of Cuenca
called Trigales, past the airport, SuperMaxi, Kywi, etc. It is an older area and the bus just kept
climbing and climbing to its turn-around area.
We had to change buses for the return trip and this involved crawling
through some streets just wide enough to handle the width of the bus.
The trip down took us back through El
Centro to the west end of Cuenca. When the bus turned around and everybody got
off we asked the driver why he wasn’t going to San Joaquin. He pointed to a bridge on the right and
indicated that we had to walk the rest of the way. Our mistake.
We should have caught the #19. So
we walked, uphill, (why is it always uphill?) about 2 kilometres to the centre
of town as we knew our doctor was somewhere near the church and we were pretty
sure the #19 went there. This walk
wasn’t pleasant as the dirt roads were dusty and uneven, however the scenery
was interesting. This is a garden town
and nobody would ever go hungry here.
They grow everything here, and we saw loads of cabbage and corn. We also saw many of them tilling straw into
the soil, even the old way, with oxen.
When we got to the church we did indeed see some buses go by
but didn’t immediately see the office of the doctor and dentist. Just to the left of the church we saw a woman
go down the street and we could see some police and security guards so we
ventured down. At first I dismissed it
as only the main Coopera bank here but we asked a security guard where the
medical/dental offices were. He pointed
and said to go around the building, which we did and found a second building at
the rear. We even had a chance to talk
with Dr. Pena who speaks excellent English and she gave us the entire lowdown
on how it operates. Basically we make an
appointment to see her when we have a non-critical ailment, otherwise we can go
to the emergency at any nearby hospital and submit the bills later. All in all, these were a very informative
trips.
Bella made her own beer-battered fish and chips plus onion
rings tonight. Ummm Ummmm, she did an
awesome job. The tilapia fish was as
good as halibut. I am sure she will try
that again. The leftover beer was very
tasty too.
That was today’s excitement.
Enjoy the many pics. Hugs to all.
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120307 Sweet baby |
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120307 Sweet baby 2 |
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120307 Oh isn't this just ducky! |
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120307 Interesting flowers |
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120307 Bella strutting between the valleys of El Valle |
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120307 Just the corner horse wash |
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120307 Showing off his clean horse, now to wash the dog.. |
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120307 Lovely foliage in El Valle |
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120307 Painting the sign for the Olive Garden |
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120307 Inside the Olive Garden |
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120307 Gorgeous spiral staircase there |
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120307 Lovely El Valle View there |
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120307 Reversing flower in El Valle |
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120307 Gorgeous colour at El Valle |
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120307 Butterfly courtship |
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120307 Milagro church, Cuenca |
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120307 San Joaquin, working the gardens |
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120307 San Joaquin, working with oxen+plow |
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120307 San Joaquin, gorgeous yard |
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120307 Solving problem with counterbalance |
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120307 San Joaquin, working the gardens 2 |
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120307 San Joaquin, working the gardens 3 |
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120307 San Joaquin church |
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120307 San Joaquin indigenous gossip |
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120307 San Joaquin flower |
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120307 Doctor Pena |
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120307 San Joaquin church bell |
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120307 Trigales view |
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120307 Not much shadow near equator |
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120307 Trigales - Just enough room for the bus to go through |
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