September 24, 2011
Buenos dias mis amigos!
...and a big round of "fucken holas" for everyone!
Well since my last travelogue entry I had just gotten off the "bus from hell" (Or more appropriately the bus from a Siberian Gulag) and am now in Cuenca. I found a place by the river (which runs through the center of Cuenca) and to my surprise it was only $7US a night and "Esmeralda" who runs the place said I could pay whenever I leave (Very trusting of her). I am seeing many more gringos in this city especially where I am located. I didn't do alot on my first day as I was still recovering from the bus ride and sleep deprivation so I slept most of the day and walked around a bit in the evening on Wednesday and saw some nice Cathedrals and then slept again and got up on Thursday morning to walk around the town to get a feel for it.
I had first heard of Cuenca Ecuador 2 years ago the way most people do which was through my free online subscription to "International living" which has online ads everywhere advertising to retirees that they can retire in Cuenca Ecuador for $600 per month in relative comfort (As us Gringos are accustomed to). So it is a great place if you have a limited CPP of $1100 or so and want to make the most of your limited monthly pension or if you are just a lazy cheapskate like myself and don't like to work all year round in the oilfields then you can work one month in the oilfields and live like a king for the other 11 months in Cuenca.
So on Thursday morning I get up and stroll down to this cafe called "Coffeetree" which is 2 blocks down the same street where I am staying at and I had noticed this place as the taxi driver was taking me to my hotel. I intuitively knew that this place had what I wanted which was Americano cafe with cream. I need my coffee in the morning so the neurons in my brain begin to start firing and then I can think! I ordered an Americano cafe con leche and would naturally order another one ("otro americano cafe por favor!") as I finally found what I wanted since Quito. My spanish is very limited and they have male and female words (like most of the other languages except english) where you have to get them right and they put there adjectives AFTER the noun they are describing. So instead of saying "the green house" you would say "the house green" or "La casa verde". But they understand you when you get those things mixed up and know what you are talking about. There is a usual 12% tax on everything and even service taxes for the waiters etc...
When I was in Quito there was a place one block away from me that had filtered coffee and the old guy who ran the joint would start conversing with me in spanish (being friendly) which I don't speak as I sipped my coffee but I would just put on my best Eddie Murphy grin and say "Si, Si" (Although I don't know what I was saying "Yes" to) and it didn't take him long to realize this one sided conversation was going nowhere LOL!).
Cuenca is definitely a jewel for architecture with some fantastic cathedrals and stone buildings everywhere. My dream house has always been a stone brick exterior (much like the 13th century gothic cathedrals in Europe) and a marble interior and Cuenca has all that material here and probably pretty cheap too since I walked by an advertisement for a new townhouse development for $43,000US that had this stone brick exterior. So I could probably build my own little castle here on the cheap.
Ecuador has high tariffs on many imports and to buy a new imported car will be double the price in Ecuador. I notice this in the grocery store where even though the super market is big they don't carry a lot and the prices are similar to North America. I had read that grapes in Chile cost pennies since many are grown there and because of transportation costs to get them to Canada is where the mark up is from but the grapes in Ecuador are the same price as Canada! I thought instead of spending $5 on coffee every morning that I would just buy a coffee maker (so essentially cutting out the middle man) and I looked around and saw a normal looking one for $50 where I could get a similar one back home for $15-20. Sometimes I do miss those cheap chinese goods sold at Walmart back home.
Just a little tid bit about getting an Ecuadorian permanent residency here is all you need is proof of a pension from your country that can support yourself or buy $25,000US in real estate or Ecuadorian government bonds. There are a few other ways but these are the most common with expats.
The city is mostly flat unlike Quito with its steep hills and Cuenca has nice cobble stone streets that have about 1 1/2" of mortar in between the stone bricks. There are palm trees here and Cuenca is also in the Andes mountains so I am still up at a high altitude similar to Quito. The more I walked around Cuenca the more I really like this city. The buildings are really nice with red tiled roofs and if they can't afford those red tiled roofs they have a red tin roof that looks similar. They use brick or stucco for the exterior of their homes.
One of my goals as I stated in my original travel entry was that I planned to lose some weight and get my old body back (back when I was a boxer). As a minimum I want to lose 10lbs per month so should reach my 200lb weight goal by the end of the year. I usually have my 3 cups of coffee in the morning as my morning ritual and drink a couple 1 liter ice teas during the day and a chicken wrap in the evening along with all the walking I am doing should do the trick. My weight has been yo-yoing for the past 6 years so I am hoping I can fit into those 32" jeans at some point. I am down 12lbs in 9 days so something is working.
I went to CoffeeTree cafe on Thursday morning and met Boyd who is a 33 year old from Holland who has been exploring Ecuador for a few months now. He took a cargo boat from Holland across the Atlantic ocean and through the Panama canal and down along the Pacific coast and arrived at the port of Guayaquil which took over a month voyage. He had basically sold his business and house in Holland and "cashed out" to come to Ecuador and is looking at getting a permanent residency to stay here. He had told me that when he was in Quito he was carrying around his expensive $4000 camera around his shoulders in the old town of Quito when a man approached him indicating that his camera was dirty (which the man probably did) and so Boyd took off his camera from his shoulders and was figuring out how this happened and as his attention was directed elsewhere another man grabbed his camera and ran off and the first man had told him not to chase the man because there were police across the street that could help him (This is what accomplices usually do). He has insurance for it but the Ecuadorian police would be my last option and I would be chasing that fucker at full speed (235lbs of blubber coming at ya!) until I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him down and then pulled out a can of "WHOOP ASS" (But that is just how the Kevster operates in these 3rd world countries and I don't recommend that type of action for most people).
We checked our guide books and decided to do a day trip to an inca ruin site called Ingapira a couple hours north of Cuenca for tomorrow morning and just do it ourselves without joining a tour group and save $30. At coffeetree cafe I would order an americano cafe con leche and would only use 10% of the milk they gave me and when I asked for another the young woman would grab the milk which was 90% full and come out with another small container of milk that was 100% full. I didn't understand this thought process so everytime I would ask for another coffee and she would reach for the milk/cream again so I would put my hand over it so she couldn't take it. This is the type of inefficiency I am trying to straighten out down here. Also I gave the waitress $20US to pay for my 3 coffees and she short changes me $10US. So I say "viente dollares??" to quickly remind her that I had given her $20US and not $10US so she quickly apologizes and gives me back the correct change. Nice try baby! Sure I was born at night but it wasn't LAST NIGHT!!
After coffee I went to a few spanish schools to check them out for their costs and schedules (the more flexible the better) and have decided to go with Simon Bolivar spanish school since I had heard good things about them from other Canadians down here and their prices and schedules were the best. I will probably start my first class on Monday for 2 hours a day to see how I like it.
Friday morning Boyd and I met up for coffee since we both live near the same intersection and then grabbed a cab to the Bus station and from there took a 2 hour bus to the "Ingapira" to see the Incan ruins. We were told when we bought our bus tickets if we wanted to purchase a return ticket and that the bus returns at 1pm and 3:45pm so of course we wanted the later bus to give us plenty of time to explore the ruins and sites. Once the bus stopped in Ingapira the bus driver tells us that he will leave at 1:10pm and there is no 3:45pm bus (Great, they tell us this once we are there). Well there were some pissed off gringos (about 7 of us) saying we didn't plan to spend 5 hours on a bus to see the ruins for 1 1/2 hours! Anyhow, it turned out the ruins weren't that big after all and we had a guide to explain the history of it to us and did it in 40 minutes so we probably would have been taking the 1pm bus back anyhow.
At Ingapira it was originally a site founded by the Canari tribe along with the Incans who took over around 1470AD as they took over the region. All these ancients around the world seem to have rooms that light up by the sun during the winter and summer solstices. And there was a pyramid of the sun which was built by the Incas with their incredible stone masonry skills that did not require mortar since the rock stones were perfectly carved to fit perfectly. The Incas had elites who ruled over the peasant population and got their taxes from everyone and every Inca citizen had to give 3 months of labour per year to the "state" by helping to build the Incan road systems and infrastructure to building their society. They built their stone buildings with no mortar where the stones were so perfectly cut that a piece of paper couldn't fit in between the stones. Our guide at an Inca site told us they heated their stones so they could cut them perfectly to fit into each block.
The place I have been at has had the most unreliable internet where it takes an hour trying to get on and you get 20 minutes of internet before you have problems again so I have decided to leave on Saturday morning and have found a better place that is just 50 feet away and has reliable internet connection. I was originally going into Boyds place to rent a room (since he said he got good internet reception there) and a young woman met me at the door and I asked for "un habitacion" (A room) so she took me across the street (I found that kind of weird but oh well) and showed me a nicer place for $8 per night with good internet connection.
This was the first place I saw and took it but if you wanted to live here permanently and you shopped around and if you have someone that speaks spanish you could get a new house for $250 per month. As International living magazine has claimed you can live down here for $600 per month and their is a Canadian family living down here with a total budget of $900 per month and their new house is $260 per month.
So now with a good internet connection at my new place today (Saturday) I have checked out this blog site and found the spanish word for languages which is "Idiomas" and pressed on that and switched the blog to english so now I have taken the time to figure this blog stuff out and have posted some pictures.
Hasta luego!
Kevin
Buenos dias mis amigos!
...and a big round of "fucken holas" for everyone!
Well since my last travelogue entry I had just gotten off the "bus from hell" (Or more appropriately the bus from a Siberian Gulag) and am now in Cuenca. I found a place by the river (which runs through the center of Cuenca) and to my surprise it was only $7US a night and "Esmeralda" who runs the place said I could pay whenever I leave (Very trusting of her). I am seeing many more gringos in this city especially where I am located. I didn't do alot on my first day as I was still recovering from the bus ride and sleep deprivation so I slept most of the day and walked around a bit in the evening on Wednesday and saw some nice Cathedrals and then slept again and got up on Thursday morning to walk around the town to get a feel for it.
I had first heard of Cuenca Ecuador 2 years ago the way most people do which was through my free online subscription to "International living" which has online ads everywhere advertising to retirees that they can retire in Cuenca Ecuador for $600 per month in relative comfort (As us Gringos are accustomed to). So it is a great place if you have a limited CPP of $1100 or so and want to make the most of your limited monthly pension or if you are just a lazy cheapskate like myself and don't like to work all year round in the oilfields then you can work one month in the oilfields and live like a king for the other 11 months in Cuenca.
So on Thursday morning I get up and stroll down to this cafe called "Coffeetree" which is 2 blocks down the same street where I am staying at and I had noticed this place as the taxi driver was taking me to my hotel. I intuitively knew that this place had what I wanted which was Americano cafe with cream. I need my coffee in the morning so the neurons in my brain begin to start firing and then I can think! I ordered an Americano cafe con leche and would naturally order another one ("otro americano cafe por favor!") as I finally found what I wanted since Quito. My spanish is very limited and they have male and female words (like most of the other languages except english) where you have to get them right and they put there adjectives AFTER the noun they are describing. So instead of saying "the green house" you would say "the house green" or "La casa verde". But they understand you when you get those things mixed up and know what you are talking about. There is a usual 12% tax on everything and even service taxes for the waiters etc...
When I was in Quito there was a place one block away from me that had filtered coffee and the old guy who ran the joint would start conversing with me in spanish (being friendly) which I don't speak as I sipped my coffee but I would just put on my best Eddie Murphy grin and say "Si, Si" (Although I don't know what I was saying "Yes" to) and it didn't take him long to realize this one sided conversation was going nowhere LOL!).
Cuenca is definitely a jewel for architecture with some fantastic cathedrals and stone buildings everywhere. My dream house has always been a stone brick exterior (much like the 13th century gothic cathedrals in Europe) and a marble interior and Cuenca has all that material here and probably pretty cheap too since I walked by an advertisement for a new townhouse development for $43,000US that had this stone brick exterior. So I could probably build my own little castle here on the cheap.
Ecuador has high tariffs on many imports and to buy a new imported car will be double the price in Ecuador. I notice this in the grocery store where even though the super market is big they don't carry a lot and the prices are similar to North America. I had read that grapes in Chile cost pennies since many are grown there and because of transportation costs to get them to Canada is where the mark up is from but the grapes in Ecuador are the same price as Canada! I thought instead of spending $5 on coffee every morning that I would just buy a coffee maker (so essentially cutting out the middle man) and I looked around and saw a normal looking one for $50 where I could get a similar one back home for $15-20. Sometimes I do miss those cheap chinese goods sold at Walmart back home.
Just a little tid bit about getting an Ecuadorian permanent residency here is all you need is proof of a pension from your country that can support yourself or buy $25,000US in real estate or Ecuadorian government bonds. There are a few other ways but these are the most common with expats.
The city is mostly flat unlike Quito with its steep hills and Cuenca has nice cobble stone streets that have about 1 1/2" of mortar in between the stone bricks. There are palm trees here and Cuenca is also in the Andes mountains so I am still up at a high altitude similar to Quito. The more I walked around Cuenca the more I really like this city. The buildings are really nice with red tiled roofs and if they can't afford those red tiled roofs they have a red tin roof that looks similar. They use brick or stucco for the exterior of their homes.
One of my goals as I stated in my original travel entry was that I planned to lose some weight and get my old body back (back when I was a boxer). As a minimum I want to lose 10lbs per month so should reach my 200lb weight goal by the end of the year. I usually have my 3 cups of coffee in the morning as my morning ritual and drink a couple 1 liter ice teas during the day and a chicken wrap in the evening along with all the walking I am doing should do the trick. My weight has been yo-yoing for the past 6 years so I am hoping I can fit into those 32" jeans at some point. I am down 12lbs in 9 days so something is working.
I went to CoffeeTree cafe on Thursday morning and met Boyd who is a 33 year old from Holland who has been exploring Ecuador for a few months now. He took a cargo boat from Holland across the Atlantic ocean and through the Panama canal and down along the Pacific coast and arrived at the port of Guayaquil which took over a month voyage. He had basically sold his business and house in Holland and "cashed out" to come to Ecuador and is looking at getting a permanent residency to stay here. He had told me that when he was in Quito he was carrying around his expensive $4000 camera around his shoulders in the old town of Quito when a man approached him indicating that his camera was dirty (which the man probably did) and so Boyd took off his camera from his shoulders and was figuring out how this happened and as his attention was directed elsewhere another man grabbed his camera and ran off and the first man had told him not to chase the man because there were police across the street that could help him (This is what accomplices usually do). He has insurance for it but the Ecuadorian police would be my last option and I would be chasing that fucker at full speed (235lbs of blubber coming at ya!) until I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him down and then pulled out a can of "WHOOP ASS" (But that is just how the Kevster operates in these 3rd world countries and I don't recommend that type of action for most people).
We checked our guide books and decided to do a day trip to an inca ruin site called Ingapira a couple hours north of Cuenca for tomorrow morning and just do it ourselves without joining a tour group and save $30. At coffeetree cafe I would order an americano cafe con leche and would only use 10% of the milk they gave me and when I asked for another the young woman would grab the milk which was 90% full and come out with another small container of milk that was 100% full. I didn't understand this thought process so everytime I would ask for another coffee and she would reach for the milk/cream again so I would put my hand over it so she couldn't take it. This is the type of inefficiency I am trying to straighten out down here. Also I gave the waitress $20US to pay for my 3 coffees and she short changes me $10US. So I say "viente dollares??" to quickly remind her that I had given her $20US and not $10US so she quickly apologizes and gives me back the correct change. Nice try baby! Sure I was born at night but it wasn't LAST NIGHT!!
After coffee I went to a few spanish schools to check them out for their costs and schedules (the more flexible the better) and have decided to go with Simon Bolivar spanish school since I had heard good things about them from other Canadians down here and their prices and schedules were the best. I will probably start my first class on Monday for 2 hours a day to see how I like it.
Friday morning Boyd and I met up for coffee since we both live near the same intersection and then grabbed a cab to the Bus station and from there took a 2 hour bus to the "Ingapira" to see the Incan ruins. We were told when we bought our bus tickets if we wanted to purchase a return ticket and that the bus returns at 1pm and 3:45pm so of course we wanted the later bus to give us plenty of time to explore the ruins and sites. Once the bus stopped in Ingapira the bus driver tells us that he will leave at 1:10pm and there is no 3:45pm bus (Great, they tell us this once we are there). Well there were some pissed off gringos (about 7 of us) saying we didn't plan to spend 5 hours on a bus to see the ruins for 1 1/2 hours! Anyhow, it turned out the ruins weren't that big after all and we had a guide to explain the history of it to us and did it in 40 minutes so we probably would have been taking the 1pm bus back anyhow.
At Ingapira it was originally a site founded by the Canari tribe along with the Incans who took over around 1470AD as they took over the region. All these ancients around the world seem to have rooms that light up by the sun during the winter and summer solstices. And there was a pyramid of the sun which was built by the Incas with their incredible stone masonry skills that did not require mortar since the rock stones were perfectly carved to fit perfectly. The Incas had elites who ruled over the peasant population and got their taxes from everyone and every Inca citizen had to give 3 months of labour per year to the "state" by helping to build the Incan road systems and infrastructure to building their society. They built their stone buildings with no mortar where the stones were so perfectly cut that a piece of paper couldn't fit in between the stones. Our guide at an Inca site told us they heated their stones so they could cut them perfectly to fit into each block.
The place I have been at has had the most unreliable internet where it takes an hour trying to get on and you get 20 minutes of internet before you have problems again so I have decided to leave on Saturday morning and have found a better place that is just 50 feet away and has reliable internet connection. I was originally going into Boyds place to rent a room (since he said he got good internet reception there) and a young woman met me at the door and I asked for "un habitacion" (A room) so she took me across the street (I found that kind of weird but oh well) and showed me a nicer place for $8 per night with good internet connection.
This was the first place I saw and took it but if you wanted to live here permanently and you shopped around and if you have someone that speaks spanish you could get a new house for $250 per month. As International living magazine has claimed you can live down here for $600 per month and their is a Canadian family living down here with a total budget of $900 per month and their new house is $260 per month.
So now with a good internet connection at my new place today (Saturday) I have checked out this blog site and found the spanish word for languages which is "Idiomas" and pressed on that and switched the blog to english so now I have taken the time to figure this blog stuff out and have posted some pictures.
Hasta luego!
Kevin
