Posted on

Foundation Day

Cuencanas take any excuse to celebrate, and they don’t limit their holidays to just one day.  This weekend is an example, commemorating Foundation Day.  This is the day (celebrated for four days…) that marks the time 457 years ago that the Spanish declared Cuenca a city.  As in North America, there are a few purists that take pains to point out that the Canaris settled this location more than 1500 years ago, just as some people like to note that Columbus did not “discover” North America, since it was settled by the American Indians long before.  Regardless, this is the demarcation of the European settlement of The New World.  For Good or Evil, it led to our being here today, and thus is marked by parades, fireworks, and general merrymaking.

Vendors lined a main street (Doce de Abril — AKA April 12) selling portraits, food and crafts.  Other groups danced in one square or another, demonstrating their ancestral heritage and entertaining crowds that gathered around.

Kids got involved too.  The younger ones participated in a potato sack race (above), while teenagers competed in dance and singing contests.  It was fascinating to watch these singers and realize that some of them definitely had the talent to be tomorrow’s teen idols.  These were not the High School talent shows I remember from the States. These kids were extremely talented and a lot of fun to watch.  The audience played their parts too, with the boy dancers cheered by screaming teenage girls, and the girl performers met with equal enthusiasm by the teenage boys in the audience.

In the evening, we wandered over to Parque Calderon, and found a (free, of course!) rock concert in full swing. The voices were superb, and many in the audience were lip syncing the songs, indicating they knew the songs by heart.  One of the biggest surprises was seeing all the musicians turned out in full suits.  These performers were clearly adored by the audience, but there was none of the punk rock rebellion we come to expect in the States. The audience went from toddlers to parents (with their kids) to grandparents, with a very few gringos in the mix, and everyone seemed to love the music.  Unfortunately, the volume got cranked up further and further until we left because it was too painful to be within a block of the speakers.  Seems one aspect is being copied from the concerts in the States…☹

 

Posted on

High End Apartment Rental

 

The “New Cathedral” is a constant sight from our living room window, but during a few celebrations during the year, it is lighted in the evening, giving us a new nighttime view. Technically the Foundation Day celebration doesn’t start till tomorrow, but a few events jumped the gun and started tonight.  Lighting of the cathedral was one of those unexpected benefits.

There is a lot of construction going on in Cuenca.  Since Cuenca has the fastest growing middle class in Ecuador, and Ecuador has the fastest growing middle class in Latin America, such construction is not really surprising.  Much of the new construction is aimed at upwardly mobile Cuencanas, or towards Ecuadorians returning from overseas (an estimated 3 million Ecuadorians work overseas, of which an estimated 500,000 have returned to Ecuador in the past 5 years).  An estimated $1.7 Billion (with a ‘B’) is sent home by Ecuadorians living overseas every year, which is second only to Oil as a major contributor to GDP.

At any rate, there are a lot of new construction going on in the outskirts of Cuenca.  Within El Centro (where we live), The declaration of the center of town as a World Heritage Site means it is not allowed to change the external facade of a building, or to modify the skyline.  This means that many buildings are having the internals gutted and transformed into luxury apartments, either for rental or purchase.  Tonight we attended the grand opening of a very nice set of 14 apartments intended for medium stay — no shorter than one month.

The rooms are quite nice, the general accommodations glorious, and the prices reasonable — at least to those of us hailing from North America.

The walls throughout are populated by high quality photographs.  My only complaint is they didn’t talk to me first, since I have scenes of the same areas that I think would have looked nice on those walls…☺

Posted on

Cajas – Lake Zorrocucho

Today Evelyn went painting with Alberto Soriano again, and I tagged along with my camera.  We went to Lake Zorrocucho this time.  While walking around the periphery of the lake, there were plenty of photographic opportunities for me, though I had left the “right equipment” back in the car…

Evelyn and Alberto set up in a little shelter across the lake, while I continued to hike and explore.  It was cold at 10,300 ft, so I put on my ski hat and fingerless gloves (letting me still control the camera).

This is definitely a target rich environment for both photography and painting.  We are planning on returning next week, and this time I will carry that tripod that is so necessary in the darker parts of the forest!

Posted on

Applesauce

Gloria Uyaguari, Evelyn’s favorite Spanish teacher, requires her students to write a diary in Spanish. Evelyn takes private Spanish lessons twice a week at Gloria’s home.

Here’s a recent page from Evelyn’s Spanish diary:

29 de Marzo, el sábado

Gloria y Adrian nos invitaron a su casa de campo cerca de San Bartolomé a recoger manzanas. Adrian era un muy buen conductor y maniobró  alrededor de todos los baches en el camino. El campo era muy hermoso.

Estaba feliz de conocer a Julia, que era la major amiga de Gloria y su familia. Julia era muy terrenal y tiene una personalidad agradable.

Primero visitamos la casa del hermano de Gloria, que es un medico que vive en España. La cabaña era muy rústica y tenía aire acondicionado natural.

Entonces, caminamos a través del campo de maíz a la casa de Nancy, que era la Hermana de Gloria.

Su casa también era muy rústica, con paredes de adobe y piso de tierra. Me sorprendío que el baño era modern y un gran contraste con la casa.

Yo estuve feliz de conocer a la familia de Gloria, porque dan la bienvenida a extraños.

Las mujeres cocinaron mientras los hombres se relajaron en la sombra. Maite (que tenía 7 años de edad) ha capturado los rencuajos, peces que se convierten luego en las ranas.

Los truenos eran muy fuertes y miramos las nubes y lluvia.

Cominos un almuerzo de comida ecuatroiana traditional, que era delicisoso. Después de la casa que estaba limpia, elegimos las manzanas de los árboles de Gloria. Johnny y Maite fueron más rápidos, mientras que yo era muy lenta. Disfruté del día con Gloria y su familia mucho. 

Después, burt hizo salsa de manzana.

In case you had trouble understanding the diary, here’s the English translation: 

Glory and Adrian invited us to their country home near San Bartolomé to collect apples. Adrian was a very good driver and maneuvered around all the potholes on the road. The countryside was very beautiful. 

I was happy to meet Gloria’s best friend, Julia, and her family. Julia was very earthly and has a pleasant personality.

First we visited the home of the Gloria’s brother, a doctor who lives in Spain. The cabin was very rustic and had natural air conditioning. 

Then, we walked through the cornfield to the home of Nancy, who was Gloria’s sister. 

Her house was also very rustic, with adobe walls and dirt floors. I was surprised that the bathroom was modern and a great contrast to the house. 

I was happy to meet Gloria’s family, because they welcomed strangers. 

The women cooked while the men relaxed in the shade. Maite (who was 7 years old) captured tadpoles. 

The thunder was very loud and we watched the rain and clouds. 

We ate a traditional, Ecuadorian meal that was delicious. After the house was cleaned, we picked the apples from Gloria’s trees. Johnny and Maite were faster, while i was very slow. I enjoyed the day with Gloria and her family.

Afterwards, Burt made applesauce with the fresh apples.

 

Posted on

Cooking Made Easy

[Update Aug 24, 2014: I have just been told that this Instant Pot can be bought at the SuperStock on Las Americas in Cuenca.]

In 2002, it seemed that I should learn to cook. I won’t go into the whole story here, but there were tears — of WTH, joy and laughter — in the process of those first months.  Suffice it to say that we are still alive, so I didn’t poison us. Once it was determined that I really could boil water, Evelyn declared that I was the Official Johnson Family Cook.  She had cooked for the first 30 years of our marriage, so it is now my turn for the next 30.  I am 12 years into my practice session so far.

On our first extended trip to Ecuador in 2012, we discovered there are some differences to cooking here.  First up was the dearth of spices I was accustomed to using.  That was easily solved by buying a ton of spices in California prior to returning to Ecuador.  Of course spices get stale, so will need to be replaced at some point, but we are already seeing some of those spices showing up in the local stores, only a year later.  I expect that most of what I use will either be available by the time I need to refresh my supplies, or I will find local alternatives.

Since we now live at an altitude of 8250 ft, we expected some cooking times would need to be modified.  Instead I have found a couple tricks that let us cook just as if we are at sea level.  When I boil water, I now add some salt, which raises the boiling point of water, bringing it closer to the sea level boiling temperature.  I also find that if I cover the pot while cooking, the completion times are pretty much the same as at sea level without the cover.  Problem easily solved.

The last problem was the most difficult — the meat here is pretty tough and not very tasty.  It was a surprise to us in 2012, but I was determined to find a solution.

Enter the Instant Pot!  We bought this on Amazon and put in our container being shipped here, without ever trying it in California.  This is an electric combination pressure cooker, slow cooker, and rice cooker.

I have now made three recipes over the past two weeks with it, and the results are stunning!  First up was a slow cook chili.  I took a standard internet chili slow cook recipe, added a lot more fresh chili, hot sauce and cayenne pepper, and let it cook for 6 hours.  Turned into one of the best chilies we have had — definitely a keeper for my recipe book.  (Actually I use A Cooks Book app on my Mac)

Next up was a slow cooked stew.  Meat here is tough, as I’ve said, and stew meat is always so.  Another slow cook recipe modified from the internet (I added carrots, potatoes and chilies), cook for 6 hours, and an excellent meal.

Last night was the capper though.  We haven’t had good BBQ ribs since coming here, so I decided to try our magic Instant Pot for a pressure cook recipe.  First time I have ever used a pressure cooker.

Evelyn stopped by the deli that had been recommended by friends, and bought 3 pounds of a St Louis cut of ribs.  The recipe was:

  1. Put ribs in pot in a circle, standing on end
  2. Pour in 1 bottle of Hunt’s Honey BBQ sauce
  3. Pour in 1/2 cup water
  4. Turn on pressure cooker for 50 minutes.

That’s it.  Took 5 minutes to prepare, 50 minutes to cook. Fall-Off-The-Bones ribs that were fantastic!  I’m in love with that Instant Pot! ☺

Posted on

Day In The Country

We were invited to a day in the country by a Peruvian family now living in Cuenca.  Alberto Soriano is a well known Peruvian artist that Evelyn took painting classes from on our first trip here in 2012. He speaks almost no English, which means we get to practice our Spanish when talking to him.  Maite, his wife, is also an excellent artist and speaks English well, so she often steps in as an interpreter when we (frequently) get stuck.

While they were painting, a group of four children gathered around. Evelyn often has young kids gravitate to her, but today Maite became the center of their attention — likely because of her ability to speak to them in Spanish. The oldest girl also liked to draw, and very studiously drew her youngest sister’s face.  She then told Maite, “we have decided that I will be Evelyn and my [next oldest] sister will be Maite” — adoption was now complete! ☺

While the three of them were painting, I went off to experiment with some photo techniques.  I started with seeing how well my ring flash would work on field macro shots, and went in search of insects.  I was surprised to see many flies apparently pollinating the plants.  In fact, I only saw two bees and at least 100 flies.  When I returned home, I used Google (a favorite friend of mine recently!) and discovered that flies are common pollinators at higher altitudes.  Since we were at 8400 feet, it appears to be normal here.

I also attempted a new technique I had read about recently — daytime stacking of photos for a dramatic image.  Unfortunately, this works best with a colorful sky and a few fast moving clouds.  Today was completely overcast and uniformly grey.  As a result, I was able to test the technique, but none of the resulting images were worth keeping.

After a few hours of painting and photographing, Alberto and Maite invited us to their home for lunch. They put my best kitchen efforts to shame with freshly made ceviche, spinach soup (unusual and delicious!), and spaghetti with shrimp sauce.  I picked up a few tricks just watching them cook, and the meal was better than almost any restaurant could have presented.

Three other friends of theirs joined us, along with their two children, and the table was flowing with fast Spanish for the next several hours.  I was able to keep up when they spoke slowly and one at a time, but when the conversation ran faster with multiple people speaking, I became completely lost.  At that point, Maite probably saw the glaze over my eyes and jumped in to translate just enough phrases to keep me almost in the loop…

All in all, a very pleasant way to spend a Sunday.  We have now been invited to spend a few days with them in Peru at some time in the future too, so the adventure continues!

Posted on

SOLD

 

We decided to sell our California house in January 2013, and finally got it on the market in June 2013 (it took longer to pack & give away a lifetime of stuff, plus prep the house than I had expected).  After five months of no offers, we took it off the market in November.

Last month, in February 2014, we put it back on the market again. This time we used a different broker, from Pacific Union, the results were instantaneous.  We received an acceptable offer on the first day it was back on the market.  The buyers even wanted a 7 day close, but were willing to wait 14 days to give us time to fly to Florida to sign all the legal papers.

So yes, it can now be told — we spent the past week having a mini-vacation in Florida to sign the closing documents, and then wait around to be sure no hiccups occurred.  The house has now closed, the new owners are probably moving in, and we are returning to Ecuador in the morning.

Hurray! ☺

Posted on

Lift Off!

Like many kids, I was enthralled with space exploration.  I remember going outside at night to watch Sputnik go overhead in 1957. I saved extra copies of the newspaper when was I a paper-boy the day John Glen went around the earth in a Mercury capsule in 1961.  And I actually helped design the mirror that the Apollo 11 left on the moon in 1969.

With all that background, there was no way I was going to miss seeing the Kennedy Space Center while driving through Florida.  Our expectations were rather low though, from theme parks in general, and from Universal Studios in particular.  As such, we rolled into KSC about 1:00, expecting to spend a couple hours and be on our way.

Our only disappointment was that we had not arranged more time.  When the 5:00 closing time rolled around, we had only been through a little more than half the display area, but had not been able to take the tour to see the first moon landing display (which probably has a replica of the mirror I worked on).  If you come, be prepared to spend a full day — at least if you enjoy space anywhere near as much as I do.

There were two IMAX 3D shows — one on Hubble and one on the Space Station.  Both were excellent, though the latter was a bit dated as it was filmed before the station was completed.  Both of us were amazed that the camera crew was able to get the rather cumbersome IMAX cameras into some of the tight spaces they were filming from.

The space shuttle Endeavor flew close by our house in September 2012, enroute to the Los Angeles museum.  Here, we were able to see the shuttle Atlantic up close and personal, as this is the new home for that retired ship.

 

Top was the shuttle Endeavor flying past our Berkeley house in 2012. Below is the shuttle Atlantis on display at the Kennedy Space Center.

Posted on

Hit By Dragon Snot

Entering Hogsmead felt like Harry first showing up in town, not sure where to turn

We are both fans of the Harry Potter books and movies, so when coming to Florida, we had to stop by and see the new Harry Potter World.  We bought a two day pass to let us go to Adventure World (where Harry resides) and Universal Studios.

Our first stop was the Harry Potter ride. The route to the ride itself went past the Sorting Hat, a hologram of Dumbledore, then another hologram of the three friends (Harry, Ron & Hermione) warning of a dreaded history teacher. The ride itself is a pretty darn good inside roller coaster that doesn’t really roller or coaster…  (see here for how it works, though you can’t really see it when on the ride).  On the ride, you pass by the expected animatronic monsters, one of which (the dragon) sneezes and you are covered with Dragon Snot!  (OK, water vapor, but it came from a dragon!)

When the ride was over, we treated ourselves to a Butter Beer — kind of like root beer but with more of a buttery flavor.  Definitely something I would have liked as a kid.

We continued onto a few other rides, including Spiderman 3D (above bottom shows what a 3D image looks like when photographed with a normal camera…).  Our last attraction of the day was Sinbad — a throwback to a 1970’s bad-acting stunt show that was a full blown dud.  We decided to put a better end to the day by going back to the Harry Potter ride again!

We came back today to check out Universal Studios.  Unfortunately, that was one dud after another.  We started with Twister, and left wondering when the show was going to start? Then The Mummy turned out to be a very short inside roller coaster (maybe 2 minutes or so) with cartoonish wanna-be-scary animatronics.  Men In Black was a boring short ride with seats that turned ala the 1960’s Teakettle rides.  

Terminator 2 3D was the only almost-decent show of the day.  It was a cartoonish combination of live actors and a decent 3D extension of the original movie (Swartzenager and Conner go into the future.

After the theme park, we decided to go to the AMC IMAX 3D viewing of 300 Rise of Empire.  To be honest, I didn’t expect a great movie, but there aren’t any IMAX theaters in Ecuador, so this was a last chance to see a Big Screen show for awhile.  Lots of blood and gore, all in 3D, but otherwise a movie that will be easy to forget…

Basically, if anyone else wants to come here, our recommendation is to spend a few hours in Adventure Land, but skip Universal Studios entirely, unless you have very young children along that are easily entertained…

Posted on

Ringling Circus Museum

Sarasota, Florida was the home of Ringling Bros Circus, and now presents the Ringling Bros Art Museum.  Upon entering, the first thing you see is a massive circus in miniature, covering 3700 square feet, reproducing in astonishing detail an early circus lot.  The original circus would typically cover an area of 30 acres, requiring 1000 workers to set up at dawn and then tear down at the end of the day, in time to move the train to the next town that night. Another 500 workers consisted of performers and support crew, including 13 blacksmiths to keep the horses and carts running, more than 20 cooks to feed the crew, etc.

There was also a room dedicated to the movie The Greatest Show on Earth, with a host of great actors, including some (like Jimmy Stewart) that hadn’t yet become famous enough to make it on the movie poster.  While there, one woman sitting on a bench said to me “I don’t understand what these movie stars have to do with the circus.”  When I explained about the iconic movie from 1952, she replied “Oh, that was before I came to the United States.”  (It was also long before I was old enough to watch movies, but I have seen it multiple times in the decades since…)

Then there was the original custom train car used by John and Mable Ringling when touring with the circus. About 2/3 of the car was set up for the owner couple, with the remaining 1/3 split between the kitchen and quarters for all the cooks and servants.

Next up were several rooms with a multiple of often massive Renaissance paintings, typical of any large art museum.

Outside was a playground being enjoyed by several families. We were curious why the kids were not in school on a Monday, but never asked, so have no answer.

Photo Galleries

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