View through our condo living room window

Last year I wrote a “Random Walk Through Cuenca” post after about a month here, and another one a couple weeks later.  These were collections of random thoughts I had about Cuenca that did not warrant a blog post unto themselves, but were things I wanted to pass on.  The time has come to present another such set of thoughts.  These are in no particular order, but are the results of little notes I have jotted to myself in the past couple weeks.

Burt – It seems that my name is very hard for locals to say.  They always seem to stumble over it, just as I do with many Spanish words.  Evelyn has started calling herself Evelina for that same reason.  I haven’t come up with a good alternative for my name yet.  Any suggestions out there?

Garbage – There are no garbage cans in Cuenca.  People put their garbage into plastic bags — often the bags given at grocery stores or mercados, and place them on the curb after 6:00PM on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Garbage trucks then come by late at night and pick them up.  The truck drives slowly but continuously, while three or four men dash to the curb grabbing the bags and throwing them in the back of the truck.  Other than having to walk around all the bags for a few hours on those nights, it is quite effective, and surprisingly quiet.  No garbage cans to bang around…

Push Every Button – Dishwashers, clothes washers, clothes dryers and the like all seem to follow some obscure logic that is foreign to us.  We have managed to get each one working, and now even know which buttons to push to do so.  Our first encounter with each was a “push every button until something happens” approach though.☺

Internet – The internet in Cuenca is nowhere near the Berkeley standards I have come to expect. The fastest connection I can get here is about 1/10 what we had in Berkeley (3Mb down vs 30Mb). Also, in the six weeks we have been here, our primary internet has gone down twice.  For that reason, we have two different ISP connections.  When one goes down, we switch to the other (slower) connection.  On the other hand, internet here is much cheaper than in Berkeley, and my two ISPs cost me less than the one I had before.

VPN – We have found it necessary to install a VPN so that we can spoof our location.  All the major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) block their web access outside the US, as does Amazon Prime.  By adding a hardware VPN router, we can now appear that we are in the US and access those broadcasts again.

Taxi – There is no need to own a car in Cuenca. I can flag a taxi directly outside my condo door in less than a minute during the day.  At night, I have to walk half a block to flag one down — again usually in less than a minute.  I have never had to wait more than 5 minutes anywhere in town. They are everywhere, and it only costs $2.00 to go pretty much anywhere in town ($3.00 if really going from one edge to the extreme other edge).

Bus – Busses are almost as easy to catch, and only cost 25 cents to go anywhere in the city (12.5 cents via electronic pass once you turn 65).  The only trick with busses is figuring out where they go, as the maps are not very helpful.  What I did was stand on our corner for 15 minutes and noted every bus number that I saw.  Now, whenever I am elsewhere in town, I just wait for one of those busses to come by.  So far I have never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a bus either, though I think I have just been lucky so far.  They run every 10 to 15 minutes.

Every Man For Himself – Driving here is aggressive in the extreme.  It is “every man for himself” and it is rare to see a driver allow another person to cross, even if the driver can make zero progress himself for that duration. Stop signs are mostly ignored, with drivers (especially taxis) just barreling through.  Stop lights are a bit more honored, but I have been in taxis that just ignored red lights too.  Good thing there is no need to own a car here!

Smoking – Surprisingly (at least to me), smoking is very rare here.  Most days I will wander the city and eat in a couple restaurants (lunch and dinner) and see nobody smoking all day.  When I do see someone smoking, it is almost always a high school kid.  Hopefully they will outgrow the habit and stop like everyone else in the city seems to have done…

I have more notes, but I think this is already a long enough blog post.  I will continue to gather random thoughts, and will probably have another Random Walk in the future.