Springtime in Cuenca

Bedroom view in Cuenca

Top floor apt

We were fortunate enough to line up a wonderful apartment in Cuenca, the city further south which we originally thought would be our home for the year.  Cuenca is gorgeous and lively.  Together with a few dear visitors from the U.S., we enjoyed countless helados, great restaurants, wonderful town squares, art galleries, parks, and markets.  They did something right when they planned this city 400 years ago -- Cuenca's downtown earned it a spot on the World Heritage list as a great example of a Spanish colonial city. And smack dab in the center, right on the main square, Parque Calderon, is the apartment we called home for the months of March and April.  We don't exactly expect to have a bedroom view like that again anytime in the near future!

Front entrance to the building

Back porch view

More back porch views

Everyday life in Cuenca consisted of after school climbing classes at C-tres climbing center, walks along the river, trips to the market to pick up fresh goodies, serenading pedestrians far below on Parque Calderon, checking out neighbor activities, practicing Spanish and playing with Claudia, our niñera, and losing count of all the parades going by the main square.

Kaia, Claudia, and Niko

Grilled cuy smells wafting up from
neighbor's patio below. Sorry Pansy.

Gutsy Grampa tries cuy 

Close friends Rhona, Mark, Jonathan and Anthony joined us right when we moved to Cuenca so we had loads of fun getting to know the city together - once we managed to extract ourselves away from wonderful and lengthy breakfast table conversations each morning. We're glad we didn't overwhelm them too much with our enthusiasm to see old friends.

Anthony's new hat

A little known fact is that so-called Panama hats actually come from Ecuador, and the region around Cuenca specifically.  But they were so popular among workers building the Panama Canal that they lost the name - but not the quality nor the fact that most are still made in this area.  We all enjoyed learning the process to make these hats -- and of course the fashion show at the end.

Parents also took turns babysitting so each couple could have dinner sans kiddos at Tiestos -- a restaurant in town which actually deserves it's very own post.  My mouth waters just thinking about the food.... mmmm.... macademia nut curry..... or their mora (blackberry), red wine and cinnamon sauce....  OK I have to stop.  It was so good we brought the kids and my Dad a second time.

Everything gets the personal attention of chef Juan Carlos

Really, those are just
plain white plates.

Quilo..... the Ecuadorian stray mutt we adopted along the way..... also figured largely in our Cuenca adventure.  Walking home from climbing club one evening we turned the corner onto the main square (Parque Calderon) and saw a firetruck blocking the intersection with the ladder up to the neighbor's roof.  Relieved to see there wasn't a fire, we were then stopped by a neighbor who said, "Your dog is on the roof and the bomberos have been trying to get him down for 2 hours!"  Ugh.  I still cringe recalling 15 firefighters crawling across the back roof tiles calling his name.  The daredevil had flung himself off the back porch one story up... uninjured. Rhona arranged a shoulder patch for us from the St. Paul Fire Department which we sheepishly delivered to the Cuenca station with a cake a month later.  Upon entering the fire station, the chief came out and called "Look!  Quilo's here to visit!"








But the odyssey was far from over:  A week after the fire department incident, Quilo then ate poison in the park, which  the municipality (we now know) plants to kill stray dogs. If not for an emergency Skype call with brother-in-law vet Stefan in MN, and the skilled care of Dr. Ma. José Paredes in the middle of the night, we would have been looking for a pet cemetary.  Do you imagine Derk and I were wondering what the heck we were doing with a dog at all?  That dog must do something right because somehow he's still with us...

We decided to keep all three safe and sound
for our remaining time in Ecuador

The patient well cared for in his box

Extra snuggling required

Day trips to market towns around Cuenca were fun, but the most impressive excursion we took was a hike around a lake at Parque Nacional Cajas, named in Kichwa as "leading to the snowy mountains."  The golden grassy tundra dotted by 1000s of lakes and surrounded by rough jagged peaks topped with a little snow reminded us more of maybe Iceland or Norway than what we would have expected to find near the equator.

Waiting for the bus to Cuenca

The end of a wet hike.

Snack time at the lake.