Category: cuenca, ecuador
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Avocados!!
We are fortunate to have an avocado tree in our front yard. It produces a voluminous amount of the best tasting fruit. I’ll save the avocado lecture here though this evergreen has many very interesting characteristics. One that we have to deal with is that the fruit doesn’t ripen on the tree. In our experience…
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Patagonia
As lovers of mountains, Patagonia has loomed large in our imagination as a travel destination. We decided to make the trek to Patagonia while living in South America, figuring we were about 50% closer. Luckily my dear friend and climbing partner Mo also wanted to go to Patagonia, and Mo was game to backpack with…
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Holidays
The holiday season is a special time in Cuenca with interesting traditions. The 24th of December is the “Pase Viajero del Niño”, a parade through the historic center of town where people dress up as different Biblical characters (Virgin Mary, Wise Men, Joseph, shepherds) as well as in traditional indigenous dress from various towns in…
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Po Po comes to town
Po Po means grandmother on your mother’s side in Cantonese. So that’s what my mom, Candace is called. She came to visit us for November & December. We had planned a trip to Bolivia to see the Uyuni Salt Flats, La Paz, and Lake Titicaca; however, we had to cancel our trip due to the…
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Ultimate Frisbee
Our Sunday mornings are usually spent at Parque Paraíso. I play Ultimate, and Riki watches our three kids, plus often three extra (older kids). When my mom was here, Riki played for two weeks, and even bought cleats. Ultimate is so fun! It’s hard on an aging body, but so far I have not sustained…
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Princess (phase?)
How does it happen? How do young girls decide they like princesses? I mean, I know, media, Disney, but we’ve been trying to limit those influences. Jade has seen 4 movies so far in her 4 years of life: Incredibles, Incredibles 2, Monsters Inc, and Moana. She doesn’t watch any tv or videos on youtube. We’ve…
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Piano recital
First piano recital, after which he said he wanted to keep taking piano forever. Then 2 weeks later he decided he wanted to stop taking lessons. But he did play while we sang Cumpleaños Feliz to Jade.
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Chimborazo
On Sunday evening, Riki and I had the opportunity to attempt to summit the volcano Chimborazo, Ecuador’s tallest volcano at 20,534 feet. The summit of Chimborazo is also actually the closest point to the sun (closer than the summit of Everest), because of the bulge at the Earth’s equator. I wasn’t too sure about our…
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El Paro Nacional
El paro means strike or stoppage, and it comes from the verb parar, to stop. It began on Thursday October 3rd, the day after President Lenin Moreno announced a “paquetazo” that stopped gasoline subsidies, cut government workers’ vacation in half & cut their pay as well. The paquetazo was created to comply with the International…
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