Friday, June 24, 2011

It looks like we're gonna be at least a day behind on this, we're staying sooooo busy and running around into late hours!

Yes, yesterday was my birthday!  Since only three of us know how to access my blog account, and Jenny said she didn't do it (I accused her first!), I know someone in Huntsville who is in serious trouble for hacking into my account! LOL!  I should have asked Matt to tell her not to enter this account - she's an obedient wife!

We flew into from Quito to Cuenca around noon; although the flight was only about 35 minutes on LAN airlines, we had a brief video - more than we got from Continental without paying!

Gerard Tretton, a friend we met through the yahoo groups ex-pat forum, picked us up at the airport and gave us a great tour of Cuenca before taking us to our hostal, the Macondo.  It, according to U.S. standards, is not the Best Western, or even Motel 6, but by Ecuadorian standards, is okay.  The room is very small but we do have a private bath.  We looked at another place that was a little larger with a TV (the Macondo has none anywhere) but I (Jenny disagreed but was being an obedient wife (her words as she's sitting behind me watching me type!) decided we could not understand the TV, since it was local channels, so the price difference would not be worth it.

Gerard took us to the Inca Real Hostal (with the TV) restaurant; we had the sea bass entree - it was delicious.  We then came back here; Jenny went to Curves and worked out, then we went to Zoe's (bar & grill) to meet other ex-pats.  We met a couple of people; didn't stay long.  There is a festival going on called Corpus Christi (not Texas!) so we walked around, got some confections (although not sweet like in U.S.), and watched the fireworks and release of the "globas" (small paper 'air balloons').  We then walked back to our hostal - yes, even after dark, but the streets were crowded with festival goers so safe. We had a map but I got confused on the direction  we were headed, so we went several blocks in the opposite direction!  An unexpected and interesting experience in Ecuador.  We "took a deep breath" and carried on.

It was night, night time when we got back to the room.  I had problems getting onto the internet, (and have had today as well), but with help from the desk person, I finally got up and running. The signal here is much weaker than in the U.S., so speeds are much slower, a reminder of dial up days and a lesson in patience.