Joe and Megan has gone out to walk their dog and Joe arrived back rather quickly saying, “Fire next door, get important papers and leave the house ASAP!”

We were out of the house with our luggage in less than five minutes. We were standing on the LEFT side of the photo with all our luggage on the sidewalk. Since I was wearing my camera equipment, I just started taking pictures.

The Cuenca Fire Department arrived within FIVE minutes and the fire was effectively extinguished within 10-15 minutes.

The Cuenca Fire Department arrived, then the large water tanker and then the volunteer fire department. Their fire trucks and fire-fighting equipment seemed quite new and the firemen all seemed very well equipped and quite well trained. I was impressed.

I talked to the neighbor next door (who had lived in Toronto, Canada for 17 years) and he said that the furniture company had been manufacturing furniture without the correct permit, had no fire extinguisher, etc. and therefore the insurance company was not going to pay for the damage caused by the fire.

We arrived at the CIFA bus terminal in Tumbes, Peru at 7:45am and caught the 8:00am bus to Machala, Ecuador.  The bus stops at both the Peruvian and Ecuadorian immigration offices.  They are approx 1/2 mile apart and cost $1.50 for a taxi.

When we arrived at the Ecuadorian immigration, we were told we could only obtain a 2 day transit visa, but when I showed the new 3 month Ecuadorian visa to the same immigration officer as we had last Thursday, he had little choice but to stamp our passports with the date and time of entry into Ecuador. (Photo is of Ecuadorian Immigration Office.)

We arrived in Machala, Ecuador at 3:30pm, pulled our luggage several blocks to the Azuay bus terminal where we were able to catch the 4:00pm bus to Cuenca. At the terminal, we had air-con and cold water – first time for both since leaving Ecuador for Peru.  We arrived in Cuenca at 8:30pm and had to find somewhere to stay.

Where we had stayed before leaving for Peru, ‘Partamentos Torongo’, was full due to Carnaval. So were several other monthly, furnished apartments.

Luckily, we were able to stay just over a week with Joe and Marie Marchkii in their six-bedroom house. We all got along well and Joe really enjoyed Mai’s cooking. Joe has an extensive selection of movies which we watched each evening.

Meanwhile, our friend, Jose, kept looking for an apartment and we finally found one.

We are leaving now to catch the bus.

More to follow upon arrival in Cuenca, Ecuador.

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.

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’.

So after having an attempt to grab my camera from me in Tumbes, being overcharged for food when not on menu, we much prefer Ecuador to Peru. Ecuador is much more cultured – especially in Cuenca which is an university town.

Peru is much dirtier than SE Asia. Everywhere we go we see trash along the streets, in the fields, etc. With so many unfinished, ugly brick houses and trash almost everywhere, we have decided to take the 20+ hour bus trip back to Ecuador.

So many things have changed so fast in Asia and so slow here.  Where we could get a double and single bed with a refrigerator and air-con in downtown Saigon for less than $15USD, we just paid $33USD for a room with a shared bathroom downstairs. No soap, but has toilet paper.

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.

BTW, I had lots of problems SENDING emails until I removed Kasperky anti-virus. When I installed it approx 30 days ago, everything was fine, then email sending just kept getting more and more problematic until I removed the program and everything is now OK.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing, so I can have it finished before we leave for Peru.

Photo at right of Mai reading her classic novels from the internet websites.  She’s really gotten into reading the English literature classics.

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. 

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

Unfortunately, I took our Panasonic DMC-ZS3 12X zoom camera which has a definite delay when taking pictures.  Thus, the photos  from our fast moving bus leave a lot to be desired, but they will give you a rough overview of the mountainous landscape, etc. Feedback appreciated!

Note: Remember to click on the photo, then press the SpaceBar to start/stop the slideshow or just click on Play icon. Click on right-most icon to get Full Screen view and left-most icon to select another photo gallery. Mouse-over icons to display tooltip with  explanation of what each icon does.

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.

The first difference is that we have a mall, Mall del Rio, in Cuenca which contains a large store, called Coral. Coral is something like Target, but Lori’s information (in ’Living in Loja’) regarding prices is still quite accurate. The second difference is that she and her husband speak fluent Spanish; we do not.

I sighed a ’sigh of relief’ when we walked around in Coral because it had a WIDER choice than we had seen before anywhere else in Cuenca. We bought some of Megan’s Christmas presents there — which she helped pick out — two cooking sets from China — one metal and one plastic.

Small appliances are expensive and are predominately Oster brand. Waffle maker costs $55.00.

Electronic items were also quite expensive and very poor selection. Just for the heck of it, I asked a sales clerk if she had any iPods — she showed me one non-touch iPod. They only had one model and not sure how many.