After six months in our new paradise home of Hawaii, we returned to our second home in Cuenca. We were in for a series of surprises though…

• As we arrived at the Honolulu airport, I realized that I had forgotten my glasses. Oops. I was nearly blind for the remainder of the trip to Cuenca, and am now wearing a 5 year-old scratched backup pair.
• We arrived in Guayaquil, where our driver picked us up to take us home. Normally a 3 hour drive through the Cajas, but the constant heavy rains had washed out the road, so we had to take the long way around, adding an hour to the drive.
• We chose to return in mid-November because the rains almost always end by mid-October and do not start up again until March. Not this year… Heavy rains every day for the past month, and thunderstorms forecast for every day for the next week. This is a la niña year.
• Upon arriving at our apartment building in Cuenca, we came across the scene in the top image. The elevator was broken. The lower-left image shows what the 5 floors of stairs looks like. Scary when trying to carry four 50-pound suitcases! Fortunately, our driver is a strong young man and he agreed to carry everything to our front door (lower-right). An extra $20 thanked him for saving our backs… ☺ A week has lapsed, and the elevator is still down.
• Once we got inside, I set up the computer systems, only to discover that there was no internet. After a couple hours of techie frustration, I gave up. I had a Spanish speaking techie friend call our ISP the next day. After some office tests, they determined that a transformer had blown due to the heavy rains and they said they would fix it the next morning. Surprisingly, they followed through and did fix it that morning…

There was even more, but let’s stop here rather than fill the entire blog with ruminations over the trials and tribulations of those first few days. I was wondering for awhile if Someone Above was telling me to return to our Hawaiian Paradise Right Away… ☺

Once we got things settled in our apartment, exploring Cuenca showed that our favorite memories have pretty much remained the same. Interestingly, Ecuador has the lowest COVID rate of any country in South America, and Cuenca has the lowest COVID rate of any Ecuadorian city, yet mask-wearing is at nearly 100%. Even outdoors. It is very rare to see anyone without a mask unless they are actively in the process of eating or drinking… or are a gringo tourist….

The mercados still have the same lush collection of fresh fruits and vegetables, available for a song. It is very easy — and inexpensive — to eat healthy here.

The Tranvia (red train in each image above) had a very troubled history in construction, and went online shortly before the pandemic caused universal lockdown in the city. Now that things are opening up, it is running regularly and pretty smoothly. Though it has a very limited route, it is a quiet, clean way to get through downtown. What is noticeable is that all of the facades along the Tranvia line have been cleaned up. As you walk along Calle Mariscal Lamar, there is a new “Arts District” forming with new museums and galleries. Evelyn saw a wonderful photographic exhibit by expat Jane Hiltbrand at the new Casa del Alfareros, that recently had a show of Eduardo Segovia’s ceramics.

People continue to enjoy the downtown area that we call el Centro (the historic district that we live in). Top-middle shows an altar still up from All Saints Day (November 1). Some tourists posed in the Cuenca sign in San Francisco Plaza, with the iconic domes of the New Cathedral in the background. You can tell they are gringo tourists by the fact that they are not wearing masks — the ONLY people we have seen all week who disregard health guidelines. The city is always kept clean by our “Green Army” (lower-right), who work around the clock picking up any and all litter.

Cuenca is a very artistic city. I have documented some of the hundreds of murals in town in the past in this blog. Here is a small sampling of new murals to add to the collection.