Thursday September 6, 2012

Thursday September 6/12 update

I was hoping to get out today just to do some photography, maybe with the bike, but the weather seemed too iffy.   I have now made arrangements to go out Saturday morning, weather permitting, with Paul Wolf who has moved a mile or so east of us, so maybe we will check out things further east?

I had a visit this morning from the ServiCable servicemen because I had called about an outage yesterday that had lasted several hours.   They checked my computer to be sure but confirmed the problem had come from their transmission.   One of them was Javier who lives down the block.

So, I decided to tackle the Etapa problem instead today and caught the #16 over to their office and asked to speak to David who was raised in Ottawa and is their fellow who translates for the expats.  I hated to have to bother him as he is such a nice man and he really hates being the middle man but he knows he has no choice.  I showed him the letter we had received from the GM at Etapa and he translated essentially that they had fixed the problem 6 times in 6 months so the GM thought our service was good.  WRONG!  I guess another, more strongly worded, letter is in order.   It will cost them a lot more than $44.80 if I get mad and use my blogs against them.

Yet Etapa is a good corporate citizen who supplies free Internet to the schools and many non-profit groups.  David promised to email me right away the requirements to apply, and he did, as it seems ridiculous that the Amigos Activity Center can’t get Internet service donated.   I am passing this information to Miguel and company.

I walked back and stopped in at the Quinta Bolivar to see if they had any new art exhibits.  They had a lot of patriotic stuff today dealing with their independence, including the actual signed independence documents from 1830 and 2006..  They had many sketches of Bolivar and, I believe Sucre, as well as two magnificent velvet flags with brocade and all.   I love stopping in there.

I continued walking home and went to deal with the ServiCable issue of overcharging us $26.80 when the promised price is $23.19, in black and white.  I went to the Monay Coral kiosk and waited for the manager, Klever to return in 5 minutes.  We had Jorge from Coral to interpret and Klever promised to have it looked after this afternoon. 

I felt sorry for Jorge who was sporting a huge bandage on one thumb.  He showed me photo of the damage he had done with a machine, slicing off ½ of his thumbnail.   That is going to hurt for a long time.

Crossing the river again I noted the level was again very low but noticed water coming out of the side wall of the bridge abutment.  It appeared to be gushing from the roots of an agave plant, very pretty!  This was new, and at first I wasn’t sure if a new spring had opened up or what, but then I noted several other pipe holes built into the wall, mostly plugged with debris, so this must be a planned expulsion of water from somewhere.   It actually looks beautiful to this waterfall lover.

I spotted a new lunch place on the street behind us, with almuerzo and dessert for $2.50 and I was dearly tempted to try it, but instead decided to return to the gals next door.  I ordered the almuerzo lunch with juice, without soup, just to see how they would react.  We had not returned there since they charged us first $1.50, then $1.75, then $3.00 for the same meal over 2 days…   I think they got the message because the meal was $1.50 again. 

I grabbed the local newspaper and one of the headlines was about 270 aftershocks of the second largest earthquake to hit yesterday near San Jose, Costa Rica, where we visited 2 years ago.  It was so expensive there I doubt I would ever return.  Here is some info on it  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000cfsd#summary  The article mentions a stronger quake on the west coast in 1991 that killed 48 people.

While Cuenca is far from perfect and the weather hasn’t been very warm for a spell, it certainly beats anywhere else as a place to live year-round. 

As I was unlocking my door, the neighbor, Nilo, came over to say Hi.  It is amazing that I am getting more confident at conversing in Spanish as long as we keep it short and simple.  He asked if I like futbol and basketball so I think he is intending to invite me along some day when they play as a family.

We get to see many odd sights here as they are entrepreneurs extraordinaire.  On our street right now are 3 guys with a truckload of mattresses and a megaphone trying to drum up business.  Gotta love the Cuencanos.

That was today’s excitement.   Please see all photos at souvenircuenca.blogspot.com.  Hugs to all.