Cuenca Updates: 2012-03-11

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Saturday March 17, 2012

Saturday Mar 17/12 update

Happy St Patrick's Day.

OK, the new informational blog is up and running for those folks thinking of moving to Cuenca.

It is at http://cuencaresidency.blogspot.com/

Please give it a peek and comment, or email us your comments. That blog will be updated as new information is pertinent and available.

We are busy getting supplies for our dinner party tomorrow night with Jorge’s and Michael’s families. We haven’t entertained in a while so filling our little place with nine people should be interesting. Bella is planning this huge meal so I probably will be eating leftovers until Christmas.

That was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Friday March 16, 2012

Friday Mar 16/12 update

I was up at 4:30am and continued work on a new Blog in progress to be an unofficial guide to persons thinking of moving to Cuenca. I have done most of the typing already, after 12 hours today, and have to decide on the format I wish to use. I imagine it will be similar to this existing one which is also soon to make a transformation.

I had to take a break quickly to meet Bella at Banco Pichincha because they wouldn’t give her her new bank card until they had my signature. Five minutes later I was back on the bus back home and back to the new Blog.

Hats off to Bella. She has done an amazing amount of weaving and crocheting to help complete the house furnishings and save us a bunch of money. Her weaving instructor asked for some photos so I thought I may as well share them with you as well. They also show the 3 new plants we bought yesterday. Now the house feels complete.

We heard from Michael that his family and Jorge’s family will be coming for supper Sunday at 5pm. Bella was planning to roast a chicken but Michael says he is allergic to chicken so we will sort out tomorrow what we are going to do, depending on what is available at Coopera, and to a lesser extent Coral. I am hoping they have a lot of those yummy ribs….

As mentioned above, now that the home is finished, I don’t want to bore you all with really mundane junk.

So this blog may take a short holiday and resurrect as a site to show off Ecuador pictures. What do you think?

That was today’s excitement. Enjoy the pics. Hugs to all.

120316 Kitchen tiers, new plants 1

120316 Kitchen tiers, new plants 2

120316 Kitchen tiers, new plants 3

120316 Window ledge 1

120316 Window ledge 2

120316 Dining room, new plant

120316 Dining room

120316 Living room

120316 Bella's magic loom

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Thursday March 15, 2012

Thursday Mar 15/12 update

Bella was waiting for the cleaning ladies then was going to look for some small but heavy plants for the house.

I caught the #13 to the Mall De Rio then walked up the Autopista to the Turi traffic circle and started the climb up the road. A little ways up the road there is a stone stairway that an expat told us was 786 steps. I opted to stay on the road and, while it mat be longer, it is much easier on the knees to maintain the steady slope.

Turi is a mountaintop town on the south edge of Cuenca, almost dead south from El Centro. There is a pretty white church that is lit up at night and it is just so pretty. The views of Cuenca from up there are breathtaking.

120315 Turi

120315 Turi View 1

120315 Turi Church

120315 Turi and Cuenca

120315 Turi View 2

120315 Turi view of our area (arrow),,3 hospitals in this shot

120315 Turi view of El Centro+Immaculate Conception

120315 Turi Church inside

I only took 126 photos, I thought it would have totaled a lot more, as well as 10 videos. Here are a few:

Cuenca, Ecuador as seen from Turi –

http://youtu.be/JcZvqaHTmMA

http://youtu.be/FWRvPRi-qXk

http://youtu.be/DEJXsXQv09Q

LAN Plane Landing In Cuenca, Ecuador

http://youtu.be/uNo1OIBgfCg

On the way up the hill to Turi is a small former café that we looked at 2 years ago. It is very small but seems to have a lower level for more living quarters. At the time it was for sale for $39,000 and it appears unchanged from 2 years ago. The fellow in the big house next door owned it. It is right on the road up the hill so there would be some traffic noise but the views this place has are absolutely some of the best in Ecuador. It would need a little renovation and, depending on how much room there is on the lower level, it would make a cozy little home with vistas to die for.

120315 Anybody want to buy this?

120315 This is its view! Spectacular!

To the left of the church is another hill with a great souvenir shop and a little climb up near the communication towers for a spectacular view again.

To the right of the church there is a large commercial center for sale too. There are many ground floor spaces for little stores and souvenir shops and it looks like it went bust some time ago. The upper floors could be expensive condos with expansive views. This place is just waiting for an entrepreneur. Tour buses and school groups all make the trip to Turi so it is continuously busy.

Further to the right is another path up another mountaintop that is even higher. At the top this fellow was leveling some ground so I chatted with him as he spoke some English. He bought the mountaintop place with several buildings, about 300 feet squared, for $40,000 2 years ago he said. I think he was pulling my leg but he did seem deadly serious. He has a building being prepared to open as a restaurant, again with the best views in the area. He has lookout towers, and even a small residence for overnight guests wanting an experience. Between two gum trees he has a long swing that the brave can swing out over the edge of the mountain. He has a lot of work to do. It is quite a climb up there and he admitted it is quite a chore to get groceries up there. I suggested he build a funicular and he would have people crawling all over the place.

I wandered behind the church too to see a gorgeous valley behind the mountain too. Turi is another beautiful suburb of Cuenca that would be a striking home place. The main problem is access. I saw two different city-type buses but neither seem to connect with Cuenca, but then I wasn’t really watching at Mall de Rio, which would make the most sense.

From this mountaintop we look directly down on the Mall De Rio to the left, the Avenida Solano in the centre pointing to El Centro, and the new Costto store to the right.

I started my walk down and decided to head over to Costto to see if it had changed any since I was last there. Nope, no changes at all, so I continued to catch the feeder road to the Avenida Solano. I was shocked to see that it was the Veinte Quattro De Mayo, the 24^th of May, which continues to a block behind our house! I did make it to Solano and its lovely boulevards with a direct view to the Immaculate Conception cathedral. I hope you don’t tire of shots of this great symbol of our city as I never tire of getting shots from any vantage point possible.

I made it down to the Diez De Augusto where our #15 bus travels and checked out a church there that also had magnificent views of the cathedral, of course. This is where I got the video of the bird singing:

http://youtu.be/JAs1heYnadU

After 5 hours of walking my feet were getting leaden so the #15 was a welcome ride home.

We stepped out to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant for supper (total $4.35) then went for a quick ice cream. Bella had a 10c cone and I had a 30c cone which we gobbled on the way to Coral. We bought some plants, pots and dirt to finish off our decorating. Now, the house is officially complete.

That was today’s excitement. Enjoy the pics. Hugs to all.

120315 Oh I want this tree!

120315 I climbed both those Turi hills

120315 Church on 10 De Augusto + Solano

120315 View of University and El Centro

120315 Eyes In The Sky

120315 Another lawnmower being moved

120315 View of Turi from the Autopista

120315 Turi posers 1

120315 Turi posers 2

120315 Turi posers 3

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Wednesday March 14, 2012

Wednesday Mar 14/12 update

I was up until 2am starting a new blog I will publish some time in the future It will be an unofficial guide for those persons considering Cuenca as a place to live. I’ve only just started and I’m already to 6 pages.

I was up at 8 and Bella still wasn’t up by 10 so I asked if she wanted to go to El Centro. She said no so I walked up the hill to Monay Mall to catch the #3 but changed my my mind and caught the #50 as it would drop me off near the Rotary Market first so I could find the shops I wanted.

I never tire of going to El Centro and seeing the people and especially the churches.

I was looking for places that might print my photos and frame them inexpensively. I finally found a FujiFilm shop not far from the main cathedral that would do 8” x 10” for only $2.50 but they had no frames. Searching for frames was fun, most are junk that won’t hang on a wall or are expensive.

I stopped by the Art Mercado and paid the artist the $5 we owed him. He almost seemed surprised that I was honest enough to return. Then I went upstairs to another art shop to get painted wood carving of a bird that we both liked. It is small and understated and looks good on the living room wall between the two windows, adding a bit of color to the room.

After picking up a few sundry supplies I caught the #3 back home getting off at the Monay Mall so I went in to Coral to see what they had for inexpensive frames that could mount on the wall. I actually found some lovely 5” x 7” frames for $4 so I got two for now. I decided to print my own photographs since I can do two 5x7 on one sheet of photo paper and they turned out great. I had my favorite shot of the sleeping baby and I had Bella choose the other from 25 possibilities. She chose this young fellow because he made her chuckle.

So our house is now pretty much complete with the addition of the final artworks.

After a few emails back and forth with Canadian Direct, they have got one of their guaranteed contractors, Uber Roofing, to agree to their price and they are anxious to start work. They are to contact ProTech roofing who are doing the neighbor’s roof to coordinate on shingles and timing. THANK YOU to my dear sister Leonie for being such a stalwart on our behalf.

We also have received some sad news that our stepfather Lucien and his family have had a meeting and decided to stop his dialysis and let nature take its course. Then he will be moving to a hospice on Heritage Drive in Calgary. He is 93 and has such little quality of life. Every dialysis treatment makes him so weak and hurting for the next 24 hours, and he was doing this 3 times a week, so he really only usually had one decent day per week. It is a tough decision on his part and we respect that. He had been written off for dead so many times already but he was the Energizer Bunny, giving inspiration for many more years. We hope his remaining days are happy and painless. This will be very tough on our 95-year-old Mom and again our sister Leonie is carrying the load for the family. We love you all.

That was today’s excitement. Enjoy the pics. Hugs to all.

120314 Immaculate Conception

120314 2 churches

120314 2 more churches

120314 Calle Luis Cordero

120314 Our carved bird art

120314 Beginning of photo art wall

120314 Always my favourite Cuenca kid

120314 Bella's choice

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Monday-Tuesday March 12-13, 2012

Monday Mar 12/12 update

Let us cross our fingers…. After 5.5 months of absolute frustration with NetTalk, we finally had contact with a smart support technician this morning. It took four hours of testing amidst computer glitches but in the end he got it to work. He said it was a firmware problem all along.

So, write this number down – 587-887-4821 which is a Calgary number so it should be exactly the same as calling us at home in Okotoks. I had sent out an email so thank you to those friends who called to say hello and give us some home news.

So it appears everyone else is on daylight saving time but we aren’t so we are only one hour earlier than Calgary and must be one hour later than Ontario. Does that mean we are the same time as Saskatchewan?

That was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.

Tuesday Mar 13/12 update

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html says the sun is directly overhead today. Yesterday was mostly gloomy with showers but today got beautifully sunny so we could enjoy it.

We had to go the Coopera Credit Union to rearrange some Certificates Of Deposit this morning and then caught a bus towards Banco Pichincha and walked up the stairs to El Centro. There was some recommended antique and art store near the top of Calle Larga and we breezed through it. It had just a lot of old stuff that we used to own 30 to 40 years ago. Actually, that made us feel like antiques, so we continued on.

I had seen some tapestries that I thought would look good in the house but they were much too long, when we needed width instead. Their wide versions were not very nice and I would have had to figure out a nice way to hang such a thing on a concrete wall. That is a big consideration when buying anything. Concrete is not forgiving like wood or drywall where a person can most often use a straight pin to hang almost anything with no visible damage. Concrete damage is very visible so we try to choose our placement very carefully and use concrete anchors.

We tried to find the artist of the painting that we still owed $5 to, but he was gone for a long lunch so we decided catch him later. We both admit that we don’t like that painting in the living room (I have put it in my bedroom). We have to return there anyway, probably tomorrow to pick up a piece of art that we both liked at another booth which will take the place of the painting.

Bella had previously spotted some interesting carved art on lower Calle Larga but he was gone for lunch too. While waiting, we found two gorgeous vases at a ceramic shop run by a handicapped woman to cover the window of the social bathroom next to the dining room. Her work was superb and her painting meticulous, head and shoulders above most of the other stuff we had seen. We also picked up a couple of tiny ceramic paintings for the entryway and stairway.

At 3pm the fellow was back at his art shop so Bella showed me her find, smaller than she recollected, of a couple of natives that appeared to be dancing. He wanted $25 each. First we talked him down to $40, then we decided they were too small to have much impact. But then we spotted two other male carvings that would compliment them nicely as it appears as though all 4 are dancing. We got all 4 for $75 and that is our new art on the main wall in the living room, understated, but definitely fun and Ecuadorian. They look much better in real life than in my photos.

On arrival at home I finally received an email response from a mural artist stating they would indeed do a simple mural for $200 for us. I emailed them back telling them they took too long so we had made other art arrangements this very afternoon. You snooze, you lose. We put that money to better use.

So, out came the concrete drill to install this art. The house is coming together nicely.

We called Michael Berger to invite him and his wife and baby for supper along with Jorge Beltran, the architect, his wife and two teens. We told them any day from Friday on would be fine. They will pick a day when both are available. I remembered later that we have a luncheon date on Monday out in San Joaquin so I hope they don’t choose Monday.

That was today’s excitement. Enjoy the pics. Hugs to all.