Dia de los Muertos is now over.  It occurs on the second day of the extended Independence Day celebrations. Police presence in the city has been dramatically increased, with the newspapers explaining that they want to be sure no outside criminals come into town to prey on festival goers.  I have seen no indication of any crime at all, so I guess it is working — at least in my immediate vicinity.  But then, we have never seen any crime in Cuenca.  This feels like a very safe city.

For most of the day, the city skies were being circled by 3 military fighter planes. We have heard that President Correa is going to be visiting Cuenca tomorrow — the official Cuenca Independence Day.  Our guess is that the military flying the skies may be related to that visit, though we have no idea why it would be done before the visit?

While I continue to be surprised at how many overweight Cuencanas we see around town, belt tightening is the word of the day in our apartment.  Both Evelyn and I have already moved our belts a notch tighter, and I actually went a second notch today.  At this rate, I may look almost normal again by the time we return to the States in January! 🙂

The weather has been picture perfect that last couple days.  Starts off with clear skies.  Clouds form later, giving a nice background for photos, but the day stays short-sleeve weather, and no rain to spoil the afternoon.

We started today by stopping in at a Festival of the Arts we stumbled over.  It was held in the same courtyard as our favorite milkshake stop (ChocoCream).  Unfortunately, we just had breakfast, so just looked at the art and food, and skipped the milkshake. 

I did buy a Colada Morada though — a Cuencan drink that is only made available during the Independence Day weekend each year.  It is a warm, purple fruit drink that reminds me of the green glop that Rene Russo drinks in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.  I think I can easily wait a year before having another…

We then wandered over to Puenta de la Centario for more high quality crafts.  This town is filled with art and crafts during this weekend, though it is often hard to find them all.

Beautiful metal engravings

We next returned to the Artesenia de las Americas again, so Evelyn could buy another belt.  We both ended up buying wallets there too.  Very good quality and low prices ($7 for wallets and $12 for belts).  Interestingly, there was no haggling on anything at this show.  I saw a couple locals attempt to haggle, and they were totally turned down too, so it was not just a failure of us gringos.

 We had read that there was another festival at Parque de las Madres, so we headed there next.  There must have been a mistake though, since the park was surrounded with a construction fence and there was a large billboard touting renovation of the park.  The fence had some interesting murals on it, helping keep the area attractive, and probably discouraging graffiti tagging.

Next was a walk across town to Parque San Blas.  We stopped in for an almuerzos we found along the way.  Very disappointing meal, but filling.  A few minutes later we were sorry we had eaten there, as the park had a series of food vendors that looked like something we would rather have eaten.  Several vendors cooking and selling Cuy (guinea pig) and Pollo (chicken).

This being Dia de la Muerto (Day of the Dead), we decided to trek out to the cemetary, which is the traditional destination on this day.  Our maid assured us it was too far to walk, and was indeed out near the airport, but we walked anyway (see why our belts are tightening?).

The cemetery was one of the most elaborate and interesting I think I have ever seen.  Immediately upon entering, we were confronted with building upon building of burial vaults.  The only prior place I had seen these was in a James Bond movie “Diamonds Are Forever” where he gets a clue from such a vault…

There were many different styles of vaults, plus in-ground burial plots, and elaborate mausoleums. The area was so peaceful that we decided to sit on a bench under a tree and listen to the pleasant female vocalist that was serenading an outdoor Catholic service in a small square in the center of the vaults.