Our First Week

We flew in to Cuenca on Saturday evening, and a brother from the English congregation here came to meet us and drop us at our accommodation. When we got outside and saw his car – a 3 door hatch-back – we thought, there is no way that he, and we and our six suitcases and 2 backpacks are going to fit into his car! We thought we would probably have to hire a taxi as well, to get everything in. We had previously seen some rather thrifty but scary means of making the most of available transport (such as three people on one motorbike, etc, etc), and we became another example of what can be done with a little Ecuadorean determination and ingenuity. The man at the trolley place helped us with our cases, and was determined that we and all our cases would fit. After rearranging cases a few times and forcing things into spaces way too small for them, to our amazement, it all did fit! The fact that the driver couldn’t see out the back or that I was wedged in the back with a backpack on top of me just added to the feeling of “when in Ecuador, do as the Ecuadoreans do!”

Cuenca is rather different from Guayaquil. Guayaquil has a greyness about the buildings – just about all the roofs are tiled in grey, whereas Cuenca has mostly all terracotta roofs, and from where we are staying (on a hill), we can see Cuenca spread out in front of us. And there are gum trees! And lots of other plants the same as Australia. The climate here in Cuenca is similar to Tassie.

We went to the English meeting on Sunday – there are 5 or 6 Aussies other than us there, as well as some Americans and local Ecuadoreans who speak English. On Monday we caught up with a couple of the Aussies, and we picked their brains as to the do’s and don’ts of Ecuador, etc. and arranged to catch up with them on Tuesday to get help with getting bus passes, mobile phones, visas, etc. (The sister speaks Spanish, so that helps heaps).

We walked into town today (Tues), via the track at the back of where we are staying – the part where we are is quite a steep hill, so the track is a bit mountain-goaty, and very rustic – the handrails and steps, etc are just lengths of tree branches joined together. It’s rather nice, and unpretentious. But definitely slippery when wet, as the trail is just grass.

The road crosses a river, flowing quite fast, and we saw native women doing piles of washing at the river, while wearing their distinctive hats, skirts and shawls. Rather strange when you consider the hundreds of modern cars driving by only a few hundred metres away.

Being a pedestrian can be a rather nerve-wracking experience here – part of the problem, other than the fact that motorists see no reason why they should give way to you, is that because they all drive on the wrong side of the road, and some roads are one way and some are two way, there are cars appearing out of all sorts of directions that you don’t expect. You definitely get a good run for your money – literally!

We had a good walk around the old part of town – the streets are quite narrow and paved with large stones and the buildings are 2 or 3 storeys high and old, old Spanish style. Very pretty.

WEDNESDAY

Walked into town again (about 40+ minutes from our place) with the Aussie couple, to try to sort out some more things – eg, visas, getting a P.O. box etc. It must have been a day for running into ex-pat brothers and sisters – while we were at the visa place, we ran into a brother and sister from the States (he gave our public talk on Sunday at the meeting) - they were also sorting out something to do with their visas, then later we went into a café for a well earned coffee, and there was the brother who lives downstairs from the Aussie brother and sister we were with – his Spanish lessons were nearby and he was having some lunch until time to go to his class. While we were in the café, a sister who is a solicitor who is helping the Aussie bro and sis with their visas went past, and stopped for conversation, then after that we were walking through the main park in the city centre, and there were another couple of Aussies from the congregation – they had been witnessing, and were waiting for their daughter. Maybe the ex-pats all go to the same places?

There was a market nearby so we had a wander and checked it out. There were lots of women in native dress (very colourful) in the flower market, and lots of other stalls with ponchos, scarves, etc, etc.

We are finding that immersion is a good way to learn language – you have no choice but to absorb it and attempt to converse in it. All the street signs and shop signs, and items in supermarkets and menus etc are in Spanish. Our Spanish-English dictionary and Google Translate are getting a good work-out. I am writing the items for my shopping list in Spanish in the hopes things will stick in my brain.

They have an unusual (by Australian standards) way of having rubbish collected – in Cuenca, the rubbish is picked up 3 days a week – eg, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. People put small bags of rubbish either outside their front fence, or up on a foldable rack attached to their front fence (so the wandering dogs don’t rip it apart and make a mess). Haven’t actually seen what happens next, but seeing as lots of manual labour goes on here (the street sweepers are actually people, not trucks) it wouldn’t surprise me if there are lots of people collecting it, rather than 1 man in a truck picking up bins.

It looks like we will probably have to go back to Guayaquil to get our visa stamped (it can’t be done here), but we are a bit more confident about getting around now. We have worked out a system with taxis (there are lots of them, and most rides are about $2), seeing as at the moment our Spanish is just about non-existent. We have printed out addresses of places we will go often, and have put them in a small photo book with plastic pages, and depending on where we would like to go, when we jump in a taxi, we turn to the desired page and point to the address, and Bob’s your uncle! It works well.

Chicken here tastes much nicer than in Oz – and by the size of them, they’ve lived long enough to have a reasonable life-span. Our landlady gave us some fat red bananas – perhaps a slightly milder taste than our usual Aussie bananas, and rather nice. A few days ago, we went to the supermarket to get some groceries, and there were all sorts of strange fruits – at the time I wasn’t feeling brave enough to take a punt (too much jet-lag, altitude adjustment and a head cold), but we will get there.

Thursday.

Brendy’s got the lurgy – we expected sooner or later to get some diarrhoea, etc. Apparently those from “outside” generally get sick, have stomach troubles, etc soon after arriving here. We suspect that it may have been yesterday’s lunch – we ate at a café in town - maybe the salad wasn’t washed – or maybe it was?!

Its strange getting used to the fact that when it comes to money here, coins are actually useful! The bus is 25cents, taxis 2 or 3 dollars, and you can actually buy things for less than a dollar! Generally small shops are not keen on notes over $10 – possibly due to fear of counterfeit notes. We were trying to work out how to get a useful amount of coins, and notes in small denominations (the ATMs give you $20 notes), and someone told us that there is a machine at the mall (10 mins walk from here) that you put in your notes and it spits out change instead. I put a $20 note in and it gave me a heap of $1 and 25cents (“quarters”). So that’s very useful to know. It’s all those little things that you take for granted when you’ve lived somewhere for ages, but when you go somewhere completely foreign, you feel rather at sea.

The temperatures here are similar to Devonport. It’s generally a bit misty overnight and early morning, but by midday the sun is out and can feel quite warm. So, pleasant so far.

A view over part of Cuenca, coming down the path behind our place.

Native women at the flower market