Sleeping Is Not An Option

Boom!… Boom, Boom, Boom! That is the sound of bottle rockets going off starting around 6AM this morning and continuing several times an hour for the rest of the day. They are often followed by the sound of car alarms being triggered, so the noise continues long past the initial explosions. These rockets and fireworks […]

Dummy!

This effigy head is about 4 feet high, and will sit upon a huge dummy on New Year’s Eve Ecuador has an exciting way of celebrating New Year’s Eve, unlike anything seen in North America. (see here for last year’s report on it) Each family creates or buys an effigy, or dummy, for the celebration. […]

Jupiter!

We have tried to get into the local planetarium several times, but were always turned away because it was either closed or the tickets were sold out.  We decided to try again today. We walked to the planetarium (it is only a 10 minute walk from our condo), and had lunch at one of our […]

Feliz Navidad

Happy Holidays to all. For our annual holiday greeting, we thought you might enjoy Evelyn’s copycat of a painting by Guayasamin shown above, one of Ecuador’s most famous artists. The art scene in Cuenca is just starting to emerge, and Evelyn has been attending artist’s receptions and art exhibits at least once a week since […]

Massive Pase del Niños Viajero Parade

Niños Viajero statue is center of attention Every Christmas Eve, Cuenca puts on a massive parade that goes all day, from 8AM till around 6PM, and consists of some 60,000 participants (in a city of only 400,000 residents!). We first saw this last year, and you can read that post and see those photographs here. […]

Music Everywhere

Brian Gary performing at LaParola We have always enjoyed live music in small intimate surroundings, but we really have rarely gone to them.  In Berkeley there were plenty of venues, but they required us getting into a car, driving to a specific destination, finding a parking place, listening to (usually expensive) music, then reversing the […]

Visa is Approved !

Cuenca Immigration Office Our Ecuadorian resident visa has been approved! As with all things government, there are still some paperwork steps before we have it in our hands, but we received an approval email two days ago, and were told to go to the immigration office today to get the next phase of papers to […]

Lawsuit!

Lawsuits are not as common in Ecuador as they are in the US, but we just got a first-hand experience to show they are do exist.  We have read recently that labor suits are becoming a hot item, with several expats telling stories (sometimes second or third hand) about household help (maids, cooks, gardeners) going […]

41 Años!

(en English = 41 Years!) Today was our 41st anniversary.  Hard to believe, but it was 41 years ago today that we skied between those ski patrol poles to the flash of the newspaper camera, and said “I do” over The French Way of Skiing at Kirkwood Meadows. (I posted details on the wedding on […]

Let The Baking Begin!

We bought a condo earlier this year, and moved into it in October. We have loved the unit and its location, and one of the advantages was that it came fully furnished.  The prior owners were returning to England after decades in South America and left us everything. Most of the stuff they left is […]

Photo Galleries

At the top of this page is a menu that will take you to a variety of galleries showing our favorite images.