We finally succeeded in obtaining new three month multi-entry Ecuadorian visa in Tumbes. We are leaving now to catch the bus. More to follow upon arrival in Cuenca, Ecuador.
On the road again…
Chris, Mai & Megan currently experiencing Ecuador
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No Power and No Water in Tumbes, Peru
January 31st, 2010
We have adapted somewhat to the vicissitudes of South America.
For the last two days is was extremely hot and humid in Tumbes so we mainly stayed in the hotel with both fans running. It rained both evenings and dust turned into mud.
This morning we awoke at 4am with neither electricity nor water.
Both outside our hotel room and later when we walked around after breakfast, we saw the electrical company having men either climb the poles or use the hi-rise insulated box to CLEAN the large dark brown ceramic pieces attached between the wires and the pole. With my telephoto lens, I could see the men rubbing the ceramic pieces with a towel and then shaking off the dust from the towel. (I don’t remember seeing anything like this in the USA.)
The electricity was restored at 1pm, water arrived at 1:30pm and the shower finally came to life around 3:00pm.
Hopefully, we will be able to obtain our Ecuadorian three month visa tomorrow and be on our way back to a cooler and more mellow Cuenca, Ecuador.
Back to Ecuador
January 26th, 2010
A heavy rain has closed the road to Cuzco for some days, maybe even a week. While we could take the train, it is quite expensive, so we have decided to head back to Ecuador.
After one week, Mai and Megan are definitely tired of Peru. The houses are ugly, like Mexico, and we all are tired of being overcharged for very poor quality rooms.
If we decide to retire in Ecuador, we have the option of buying a three year old or less vehicle, even a small RV, and either drive it or ship it down to Ecuador. That way we could tour through South America without having to deal with over-priced hotels with poor service and restaurants with so much deep-fried food, especially chicken. Mai cooks much better than anything we have eaten here. Of course, there are many things that we don’t know yet, but the ‘ladies’ are ‘burned out’. Read More
Our Good and Bad Experiences in Peru
January 25th, 2010
Thirty kilometers south of the Ecuador/Peru border is Tumbes. We had a quick awakening to Peru – we were repeatedly overcharged for food, etc. Ecuador has an efficient bus system, but Peru has an awful, privately owned bus system. Only 1 or 2 bus companies run between many cities. We had some problems travelling because the Peruvians were PROTESTING for a better transportation system.
In the evening a motorcycle taxi drove by and a man tried to grab my Canon camera from me. He pulled so hard that I received scratches on my left leg from being partially pulled into the motorcycle taxi. As always, I had the camera straps around my neck and he could not pull the camera away from me.
At the bus terminal in Tumbes we met a wonderful 86 year old Peruvian gentleman, Juan, who used to be a boxer, so he was wonderfully fit.
That evening we took the night bus from 9pm to 5am to Chiclayo. Juan took us to his small apartment in Chiclayo and introduced us to his son, Oscar, and 40-something girlfriend. Oscar took us to a hotel nearby and then we all went to lunch at a simple stall in the market. Both Juan and Oscar, were absolutely wonderful to us. They helped us very much even though both didn’t speak hardly a word of English. Oscar even helped us by bus tickets to Trujillo.
We have spent three nights in Trujillo, visiting nearby museums of the Pre-Columbian peoples of the North Coast of Peru – Huaca Prieta, Moche, Chimu, etc. They lived in Peru from 3500BC until the Spaniards arrived. Now another 20 hour bus to Lima, then another 25 hours bus to Cuzco.
Leaving Ecuador before Jan 21st for Peru
January 15th, 2010
About the time for us to be “On the Road Again….” Our Ecuadorian 3-month visa expires on Jan 21, 2010 (as seen on the right).
While visa options exist, I definitely want to visit Peru and probably Machu Pechu (correct spelling is Machu Picchu). We may stay in Peru for approx 2 months and then return to Cuenca for some weeks before continuing on to Quito and flying back to Portland on April 18, 2010.
Because the Ecuadorian government is fining people $200USD who leave Ecuador after their visa expires, we will be leaving Cuenca on Tuesday, Jan 19th (one week from today) and then have two days for our journey south to the border. It is a 4-5 hours bus ride from Cuenca to Machala. We may stay the overnight. Depends upon when we arrive.
We will then take the… (now this is when the internet in the local area was unavailable during the late afternoon and evening). Between internet outages (which are fairly rare) and power outages, it is sometimes hard to compose new posts.
I started this post Tuesday evening and am finishing it Friday around noon.
Doremon Eating a Cookie (with Megan’s Help)
January 15th, 2010
Megan is currently watching Doremon on Cuenca TV from noon to 1pm. Usually we have the power outage from 11am to 1pm, so she doesn’t get to watch it. She can only watch it twice during the weekdays because it cuts into her ‘home schooling’ time.
Note the power outages have been reduced from FOUR hours down to TWO hours and not every weekday now.
Shortly, thereafter, Doremon jumped out of the TV and ate some of Mai’s fresh chocolate chip cookies (with Megan’s help, of course). I bought the mask for Megan for New Year’s celebration.
Ever since we left Vietnam, Megan has been having Mai read her Doremon comic books in Vietnamese to relax Megan when she first lays down to go to sleep in the evening. Mai mentioned just yesterday that she was surprised at how much Vietnamese Megan could read. Because of Mai reading to Megan a story which she already knows in spoken Vietnamese, Megan is quickly picking up reading skills in Vietnamese.
Sometimes, having Mai & Megan speaking Vietnamese together, which I don’t understand, is a bit disconcerting, but I strongly support Megan learning her Mother’s mother tongue. Even if it puts me in a rather unusual situation.
Upstairs in the apartment complex, we have an American man married to a Thai women with a five year old son who speaks only Thai, so I’m not completely alone having a child in the family speaking a language which the father doesn’t understand.
‘Easy Listening’ Radio Cosmos 97.3 FM
January 10th, 2010
As I work both with Megan’s ‘home learning’ and ‘putering’ on the computer changing this blog, I have really enjoyed listening to a local Cuenca radio station called Cosmos 97.3 FM Stereo.
For better or worse, I don’t understand the Spanish commercials, but the radio station plays quite a few 1940s-70s English songs. Just heard one by John Denver about an hour ago. Also plays a fair amount of instrumental songs. Very mellow station to have in the background and I get to tune my ear to hearing Spanish.
Almost forgot to mention that suddenly, without any warning, the station goes off-the-air and all you hear is either static or another station. I don’t exactly know why – maybe the station is enduring an Ecuadorian ‘power outage’. After awhile turn on the radio and everything is OK.
The image on the right is a display of all the radio stations here in Ecuador. Quite a few, but it seems that they are owned my only a few companies. (If you click on the image, it will open a new window with the webpage with the slideshow. Go to the 4th image.)
Welcome 2010!
January 2nd, 2010
We celebrated the 2010 New Year with a wonderful dinner which included a 13 pound stuffed turkey, potatoes, purple yams topped with multi-colored marshmallows and ending with apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. The only thing we could not find was cranberries.
Turkey’s are very expensive here – imported ones from the USA cost over $50.00USD for a 15-17lb turkey. We opted for the Ecuadorian turkey which comes with feet, neck and head stuffed inside the turkey. Our 13 lb (6.5 kilo) Ecuadorian turkey cost us $23.00USD.
The dinner was absolutely delicious!
We celebrated a rather laid-back New Year’s Eve – none of us are ‘party-ers’ anymore. But, just wait another 10 years when Megan is 19 years old and I’ll bet she’ll be partying. Was a lot of craziness happening in Cuenca last night with lots of fireworks going off for hours before midnight.
Everything which is imported is more expensive than in the USA (one-year ‘temporary’ 22% import tax), so living in Ecuador is not much cheaper than living in Portland, Oregon, but the winter weather is much nicer.
PS Just when I was finally ready to post this, the internet went down for the remainder of Jan 1st, so here it is posted at 7am Jan 2nd.
Current Weather in Cuenca
December 30th, 2009This is a snapshot of Cuenca’s weather forecast from my Firefox browser.
For weeks, I’ve been staring at a similar weather forecast – rain, rain and more rain. However, that has not been our experience here in Cuenca, Ecuador!
While rain has been forecast for almost every day, we’ve had only three periods of rain in the last three weeks or more. It rained this last Sunday and today, Tuesday. While it has rained hard, with accompanying lightning and very loud thunder, for about an hour (or less), the rain then became a drizzle.
Sunday, I looked out the kitchen window across the river and saw a parade, so I rushed out with my camera and took a few pictures. Because most of the parade was already past, I tried to take a shortcut too take more pictures. Good and bad – I was wrong because the parade didn’t double-back, but I was lucky to be close to the apartment when it started raining rather hard. It really did RAIN on the parade! Quite hard, too.
Today, it also rained quite hard and we were supposed to have another power outage – our first one from 7pm to 10pm. Eating in the dark. But it didn’t happen – either it rained hard enough to get it called off or enough people complained that 7pm-10pm was horrible because they would miss all their TV shows.
John, thanks for your feedback – thought I’d give you a bit more detail on the weather situation here lately.
Loja: Warmer Weather & Very Itchy Mosquito Bites
December 28th, 2009
One thing that we realized upon our return to Cuenca was that we all were scratching very itchy mosquito bites. We had used mosquito nets while sleeping in Loja, but we, nevertheless, were all bitten multiple times.
Having lived in Vietnam for several years, we had never experienced mosquito bites which itched as much as the bites we received in Loja and vicinity.
Cuenca is cooler, so that we don’t experience the same problems. Yes, we have occasional mosquitoes in our apartment, but we have never itched for several days like from the mosquito bites which we received in Loja.
In fact, I’m still itching on my elbows, legs and ankles as I compose this post and Mai and Megan are having the same itchy problems. Thus, we are not sure the warmer weather in Loja, Taxiche and Vilcabamba is worth having to tolerate the itchy bites for 3-4 days.
Over the Mountains to Loja and Vilcabamba
December 25th, 2009
Merry Christmas!
We just returned yesterday from visiting our friend, Sam, and his family in Taxiche, Ecuador (which is one mountain away from Loja). It is a twisty FIVE HOUR bus ride from Cuenca to Loja. We were told it was 3 to 3.5 hours. Unfortunately, Mai is not used to such twisty roads and became quite sick. On 0ur return trip, Sam gave her Vitamin B6 and some multi-vitamins so Mai returned in much better shape, but still feeling ‘under-the-weather’.
Several times we had to stop for 15-20 minutes due to road construction. The roads are being paved with concrete, which makes them smoother but not any less twisty.
Above is a picture of Sam’s house on a hill which has a 270° view of the valley below. His wife, Bernarda, is an extremely sweet and generous woman and we had a wonderful time. The first day we arrived at 5pm, thinking we were only going to have a 3 to 3 1/2 hour bus ride which turned into a five hour bus ride. The next day we walked around Taxiche and celebrated his youngest daughter’s 13 year old birthday. The second day we visited Vilcabamba — The world-renounced ‘Valley of Longevity‘ — Vilcabamba,_Ecuador (Wikipedia). It seemed like a ’sleepy’ town which had quite a few ‘gringos’ from Europe or USA (many more than we had seen elsewhere). Sam mentioned that many of these newcomers owned small and large houses on the outskirts of Vilcabamba.
We also met a 82 year old woman, Bee, who was told she was terminally ill in California around 40 years ago and has been living in Vilcabamba for 38 years. She mentioned that almost 1/3 of the Ecuadorians had moved to Spain to obtain better wages, but are now returning to Ecuador due to the economic turndown.
