On the fifth day of our road trip to the Amazon (aka Oriente), we decided to take an unplanned side trip to Puyo, about a two hour drive north of Sucúa, where we spent the first few days. We had wanted to visit the monkey refuge known as Fundación Los Monos Selva y Vida a […]
Lost In The Jungle (Sucúa)
Last week we spent a few days in the Amazon, called the Oriente by Ecuadorians. We had wanted a little time in warmer weather (Cuenca has been pretty cold all of August), so when a local tour operator said he wanted to do an exploratory trip and was looking for two people to join him, […]
Cañar Mercado and Biblián Church
After going to the Cañar animal market, we went into town to the main mercado for some people watching. According to Alberto (our driver for the day), most of the younger generation left the city to find work in the United States or Spain, so you mostly find older Cañari people in this town of 225,000. On Sundays, Cañar […]
Cañar People and Murals
Yesterday we went to the Cañar animal market, and I created the first part of the report of that trip, talking about the various animals for sale. Today I want to show some of the people that were there at the market. Top left above is Alberto, Evelyn’s art instructor and our driver for the […]
Cañar Animal Market
Two and half years ago, in November 2012, we attempted to visit the animal market in Cañar, which is 70 km NE of Cuenca at 10,400 ft elevation, and is supposed to be the largest such market in Southern Ecuador. Unfortunately, our driver that day did not understand what we wanted, and by the time we […]
Excited About Potatoes
In our Spanish class, one of the people said she overheard two women talking excitedly about papa. It was papa this, and papa that. She knew just enough Spanish to know that ‘papa’ is Spanish for potato, and she couldn’t figure out why these women were so excited about potatoes? Only later did she realize […]
Corpus Christi Fireworks
Today was the first day of Corpus Christi. It began with a procession, which I wrote about in a separate blog entry. Tonight was the opening day fireworks. There will be fireworks and castles every night for seven days. Fireworks in Cuenca are nothing like in the States, where you must keep a “safe distance.” […]
Corpus Christi Procession
Corpus Christi started today, and not many places celebrate it as largely as Cuenca, Ecuador. Also known as Septenario, this was originally an indigenous celebration of the June Solstice, but was co-opted by the Catholic Church in the 1600’s and turned into a Christian event. One of the highlights for many is the booths filled […]
Museum Tour
Our Spanish class went on a tour of four museums today, three of which I didn’t even know existed in town. The first was Simon Bolivar’s home, which has been converted into an art gallery, shown above. I knew of two Panama Hat museums in town, but we went to a third I had not […]
Carnaval Night Parade
Music and Dance were again a major part of the night parade. The children and the congo line were new tonight We wound up our week in Ambato by watching the Monday night parade. We were surprised to discover there were two parades. Yesterday’s daytime parade, and then another one tonight, called Ronda Nocturnal. We […]
