We flew from Cuenca to Quito, then on to Miami today. We are here to handle some legal issues that required being in the States (more details on that next week). When arriving, our first stop was a local Citibank branch, to handle closing out an obsolete account. While there, the wind whipped into […]
I Could Feel The Soap Melting…
I could feel the soap melting in my ears, after the vicious attack of el diablillos (aka “the little devils”) as we wandered into an unexpected battle zone. Carnaval had begun! ☺ Evelyn had seen some barricades going up earlier today on Parque Calderon. After dinner at Cesar’s (a friend’s restaurant around the corner that […]
30 Days of Madness
The last night of election campaigning included several fireworks displays, including this one shot from our living room window. Ecuador has an interesting election cycle — I think the USA could learn something from their process. Nobody is allowed to campaign until 30 days before the election. All campaigning must stop 48 hours before the […]
Volcano Erupts
Volcano erupts (image courtesy El Mercurio newsaper) Truck in our parking lot with fine layer of volcanic ash We lived in Beaverton, Oregon in 1980 when Mt St. Helens erupted. We could see the eruption from our house, and ash covered the town several times over the following weeks. Today we had a small […]
Vilcabamba
We took the bus to Loja, and then a taxi to Vilcabamba for a few days this past week. We have heard quite a lot about the area and decided we wanted to check it out. As is common on inter-city busses in Ecuador, the driver put a DVD on for entertainment. Usually it […]
Our Life in a Box
Our container was loaded today in Berkeley, and will now work its way towards our new home in Cuenca. It is both a relief, and a bit humbling to see everything we own fit in little more than half a 20 foot shipping container… Either way though, our life in Ecuador is starting to more […]
Visa Indefinida
We got our resident visas today! We are now legal Ecuadorians! We were also told to pick up our cedulas a week from Friday, which will be the final document to complete our legal integration into Ecuador. The process took four hours today, and seems that it shouldn’t have taken more than an half hour. […]
Subdued New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve day was warm with just enough clouds to add character to the sky New Year’s Eve this year was rather subdued, when compared to last year. All the same activities were there, but fewer of each. Fewer effigies in doorways and on car tops. Fewer neighborhood competition displays. Fewer firecrackers. Fewer fires. […]
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. […]
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 […]