While the pictures load at the bottom of the page, I hope you enjoy reading Part VIII of my journal of our trip to Ecuador.
My Journal of Our 1997 Trip to Ecuador
-- by Donna R. Carter
~*~ Part VIII ~*~
From Riobamba to Cuenca Friday-Monday, December 26-29, 1997
We were on our way at 7:15 or so. It was overcast, but not bad. We stopped in Riobamba at the Café Montecarlo and had a pretty lousy breakfast (although Melissa's Chocolate Cornflakes and fresh fruit and real orange juice were good ... and we snitched, since she wasn't going to eat it all...
We walked through a rather unimpressive market, found more unpainted tagua tea sets, but didn't buy them. I kept thinking what a shame it was that they didn't paint them anymore... they were so cute, painted, and they looked so dull plain.
Once past Riobamba I was in more unfamiliar country. I haven't been in southern Ecuador much past there, except flying or driving to Guayaquil a few times. I really liked what I saw. The Colta area is just gorgeous: farms quilting the irregular mountainsides with fields of wheat and barley gently rolling in the breeze.
Winding still further south, we stopped at a gas station in Alausí for snacks/lunch and then proceeded into the fog which lifted only occasionally.
We drove on through Tambo and Ingapirca, to the ruins. I don't know why ... maybe it's just me (or "us"), but Incan ruins leave me feeling dull and unimpressed. They were considerably larger and better defined that Rumicucho, but I suppose a temple to the sun god just doesn't make as big an impression on an overcast day or something ;)
We drove on again, through Cañar and Asoguez. Asoguez was quite a bit bigger than I had thought. A lot of stone streets, crowded, but cleaner than a lot of other towns we'd driven through.
We kept going until we got a ways into Cuenca where we called Walter from a payphone (yes, they *do* exist there, now, although I would call them a "call box" more than a payphone, and you have to time your money just right: You dial, wait for them to pick up and then QUICK drop your S/.1,000 coin in ... and you have to have extra change on hand because it isn't very long until you have to add more)
I got ahold of Walter at his Academy ... he talked with Wilson and gave him directions about how to get to the school. We drove up and he directed us where to park. He had purchased our airline tickets for the return to Quito on Monday and we had Wilson take our purchases back to Quito and directed him to meet us at the airport on Monday with everything to take us back to the Guest House. I still had no idea how we were going to put all the stuff we had purchased up in the house, nor how we were going to get it all back!!!!
Anyway, while we piled our other stuff into the back of Walter's car, Melissa was already making friends with his 9 yr old, Annie and her cousins. We met Patty, Walter's wife, and her family little by little, got a tour of the hacienda and the Academy and brought our stuff and a mattress to Walter's house where we were to stay in his oldest son (also Walter)'s room and he shared his little brother (Nicholas)'s room. It was cool to look out the window and see rooftops of orange/brown tile all around...
Cuenca really *is* full of little white houses with orange tiled rooftops... and a river, with green, grassy banks, flows through the "middle" of town. Most of the roads we went on were stone, although some are paved.
We were pretty beat (silly how sitting in a car can make you tired) so we made sandwiches from grilled pork and chatted until about 10:30 when we went to bed.
Saturday was yet another *gorgeous* day weather-wise, although I woke up at 3:30 a.m. (don't you hate when you wake up for no reason and then just don't go back to sleep?) We got up at about 8:45 and showered, did a couple of loads of laundry (Thank you *so* much, Patty!!) and hung them out to dry (that was cool ... I haven't hung laundry out to dry in many years ... although I did that in Albuquerque when I lived there).
About 10:30 or 11:00, we all piled into the car and went downtown... The shops, for some absurd reason, in Cuenca, ALL close at about 1:30 on Saturdays ... and they're not open on Sundays ... and we were scheduled to fly out of Cuenca to Quito *EARLY* Monday morning, so we went downtown to cram in what few hours of shopping we could in the time we had.
Walter and Patty were great ... Walter drove the girls and Nicholas around in the car while Patty and Walter jr. walked us from shop to shop.
I was hoping to see a lot more marble than we saw ... and the pottery we saw from Cuenca in Quito seemed to be of better quality than what they kept at "home" in Cuenca for the locals... but we still bought a great deal of stuff -- the most costly being two matching ceramic (Vega) plates of El Altar and Chimborazo. We bought a cute little pottery village, individual figurines three musicians and a woman selling pots, a set of little houses ... well ... not *so* little ... to put on the piano, 5 painted tiles that matched our boxes and coasters, and sundry small gift items for friends and family.
I was still looking for my painted tagua tea set ... to no avail thus far. I knew we'd go down Amazonas to all the artesanía places when we got back to Quito so we could pick up anything we hadn't gotten on our travels around the country. It didn't seem the prices in Quito were much higher than the prices locally, although in Quito you couldn't always get them to lower their prices like you could elsewhere.
I thought to myself that we were leaving the following Thursday morning and I was mixed up between "I want to go home" and "wait ... I don't want to leave home!!!!"
I was loathe to stay, but loathe to leave. I wanted to live in Ecuador, but then again, I thought I'd be awfully frustrated unless we had a really nice home... I hated the thought of living in the U.S., but I also got a bit overwhelmed at having *so* much Ecuadorian stuff up at home in the U.S., too! So weird a mix of feelings that day.
I went into "hermit" mode (which I do every now and then, even back here in the U.S.) so, when Walter invited us out to the trout farm, I declined and decided to stay in the house quietly for a while by myself while he took Jeff and Melissa and his kids out to the farm. Patty was working on the computer at the school, so I spent the rest of the afternoon in the house with their great black dog, "Shadow" ... and I took a nap.
Dogs barking, birds chirping and traffic going by .... sun through sheer curtains and a light breeze ... what more could one ask for?
When everyone returned they were all full of stories about the huge trout they had gotten for trout ceviche for Sunday dinner. . . it was 7 ½ pounds AFTER gutting, and apparently it still wouldn't die even after it was gutted it was flopping around in the bag!
We had spaghetti and some Chilean wine bit later on, and we wrote an email to mom and dad and went to bed. I was beat, and irritable (because I was confused and I was feeling dependent on everyone). I woke up about 2 a.m. and laughed, though ... listening to a catfight and dogs barking ...
On Sunday morning, we got up around 9 or so, and I spent the whole morning typing up email. After I was done, I went up to the room and got a vivid reminder of band drip days and block parties with blaring off-key music going on and on and on for hours on end.... just "lovely" music ... full of foul language being yelled at lungtop ... coming from a video store next door.
Everybody else in the house was dying to get away from it as well, so at about 1 o'clock we piled into Walter's Trooper and dropped everyone off at the hacienda. Walter drove Jeff and me around Cuenca for pictures and we stopped for bread... but Jeff and I saw ice cream, so we got 2 scoops each. I just got Mora... Jeff got a couple of other flavors.
We drove back to the hacienda and had dinner with the family - the trout ceviche made with that huge trout was great, and the soup with eggs and potatoes was good, too! We had a huge half of a peach for dessert. They served maracuyá juice, which I usually get a bad reaction to, so I only drank a half a glass, but Jeff liked it!
The kids had already eaten, Melissa had alphabet soup and some arroz con pollo and was off playing with Annie and all the Maria's while the adults ate.
After lunch, we piled back into the car and drove home and we all took naps again (I know, it sure seems like we took a lot of naps, but then, we also did a lot of stuff!!!)
Walter made pizza for supper (no cheese for Melissa because of her allergy to milk) and after Melissa went to bed, Walter and Jeff and Patty and I stayed up and talked ... mostly Walter and I ... about Alliance Academy memories and such.
In the midst of the story telling, I was cracking up laughing and I stopped long enough to take a sip of my coke, but Walter said something and I hadn't swallowed and I snorted *really* badly ... coke through my nose and everything (although they said I managed not to spray everything) ... so, I guess, in a manner of speaking, I could say that I snorted coke at Walter's house... ;) {LAUGH}
We got up *way* early on Monday morning in order to get to the airport by 6:15 a.m. Jeff had managed to pack all our Saturday purchases into one stereo box. Walter drove us to the airport and saw us off. (We had a great time there, Walter!! We will plan on seeing you all again next time we're down there if at all possible!)
We flew Tame to Guayaquil and saw some of the flooding they were talking about on TV and news, and we flew on to Quito where Wilson met us at the airport... he'd already left our bags at the guesthouse, and it was a good thing he had, because if he hadn't, we would not have had room for that big box (I think he already knew our shopping habits by this time and assumed as much) {grin}.
