Marching Band Season in Cuenca

Well, folks, it seems like marching band season is off to a great start here in Cuenca. I watched a parade out of the apartment window this morning (my favorite way to watch a parade because its not overwhelming), and it was a bunch of schools with their drum and bell corps marching down the street. I think that its probably a Carnival thing (because Carnival ends in two weeks, so everyone is trying to get their fun in now), but who knows.
About a week ago, we took a field trip to the river near the school for a picnic, and we saw a group of kids from the school across the street practicing for a parade of some sort. In these parades, its just drums and bells and flags, so its not a full marching band but still the closest I’ve seen. Parades are a huge thing here (there’s been one to watch every Saturday out our window since we moved in here, I think), so it seems reasonable that there are marching bands. Anyway, as you probably can tell, I’m enjoying living in the center of town now and being able to be an observer out of my sixth floor window.
The elevator in our building still isn’t fixed, so coming home can be kind of an up hill battle (especially after having gone to the grocery store). To me it seems easier that our treck up the hill to the Colomas' house, but Slocomb disagrees. We’re probably talking the same amount of rise but very different slopes. I’d rather just get it over with in one fell swoop, but apparently Slocomb likes his hill climbs long and drawn out. Oh well. Despite the problems we’ve had (plumbing and elevator mostly), we’re still enjoying our new apartment in the center of town (literally half a block from the cathedral).
Another great thing that we can see out the window is the flower market. Every day, and especially on weekends, there are about 10-15 vendors in this square selling flowers. A dozen roses is about 2 dollars, and you can come home with a huge bouquet for less than 5. One of my favorite flowers that they sell are calla lilies, which you also find randomly growing in people’s yards. Interestingly, these lilies are cheaper than roses here, but once they get imported to the US (likely both from Ecuador), the price changes drastically. I think in the States, calla lillies are a dollar or two a piece, but here you can get 5 for a dollar. A florists dream, Ecuador. Growing season all year long, and a perfect climate for roses and orchids and lillies. Love it! I thought that I would spend a good bit of money in the flower market, living so close to it, but I actually haven’t bought anything since we moved in. I still don’t have a vase, but I know a great place to get ones just on the other side of the main market, which I can also see from my window. Maybe I’ll work on that today.
Last weekend, Slocomb and I went to the beach as a little mini-vacation. We left Cuenca on Friday afternoon and spent the night in Guayaquil at our favorite little quiet, up away from town hotel. Great place to stay in Guayaquil - Iguanazu - but about a $5 cab ride from downtown or the airport, which is expensive here, btw.
On Saturday morning, we got up and went to the bus terminal to catch the bus to Salinas, one of the many beach towns about two or three hours from Guayaquil. I had already made a reservation at a hostal there (in Spanish - my first Spanish phone call all on my own!!!), so we were ready to go. However, when we get to the bus station, there are huge lines to buy tickets! We didn’t know for where yet, but Slocomb turned to look and me and said, “If those are the lines to buy tickets to Salinas, then let’s go someplace else!” I completely agreed, and those lines did turn out to be the lines to buy tickets to Salinas and Montanita (another beach town we’ve been wanting to go to). So we ended up going back to Playas, the beach we went to in November. We got on the very next bus leaving for Playas instead of spending 2 hours waiting in line just to buy a bus ticket, so I think we made the right decision.
To some people (and for the first time), bus rides in Ecuador can be scary because the bus stops about every 5 or 10 minutes to pick up passengers from the road who usually end up standing in the aisles. Also, a few times along the journey to Playas, vendors with fruit and food and soda get on the bus and try to sell to you. We haven’t ventured into fruit or drinks (besides bottled water) yet, but this time we did buy several maduros fritos (fried sweet plantains) and papas fritas (fried mashed potatoes with hard boiled egg or fish or chicken inside). Talk about serious yumminess. They always tell you not to eat street food, but these are totally worth taking the chance. And we haven’t gotten sick... yet.
We didn’t have a reservation in Playas, so the first thing we did was look for a place to stay. There are plenty of hotels and hostals along the beach, so we just walked until we found a place we liked. We also knew that there was always the place we’d stayed last time, which was fine but not fancy at all.
The first place we went into was a hostal with a double room for $20 a night. We asked to look at a room, and all they had were two twin beds and a bathroom without a toilet seat. So we decided to keep looking. We went to another couple of inexpensive places before realizing that this was really a place where you get what you pay for. We found a place that we liked fairly well, but they didn’t have any rooms with a view, so we finally tried this place that I thought was going to be too expensive for us, the Hotel Dorado. Normally you can know if it says “hotel” that means you’ll end up paying more than you should, but they had a really nice king-size room with a tv, dvd player, a/c and an ocean view for $40. Which is on the expensive side of hotels in Playas, but I think it was worth it. The place still didn’t have hot water, but its hot and humid enough in Playas that you don’t want hot water anyway.
The rest of the weekend we spent lying around on the beach (renting two chairs and an umbrella for $5 all day), eating too much fried food from the vendors on the beach, and eating incredible seafood and empanadas. People in the Sierra hate to admit it, but the food on the coast in Ecuador is just better. Hands down. But I know how to make a mean shrimp ceviche and some good empanadas, so I’m on my way to bringing the yummy coastal foods with us to the Sierra and back to the States.
I don’t remember if I said this last time, but there are always vendors walking back and forth across the beach, selling jewelery, souvenirs, hair braiding, food, and beer. Awesome! In some places, vendors can be annoying, but here you can just smile, and shake your head and they keep walking. Its really convenient to not have get up to get a beer or food. When my family goes to the beach, Dad acts as the food/drink vendor because he can’t spend too much time on the beach. But if Dad’s not around, having constant vendors is pretty cool too. And the things the vendors sell are not expensive; its the same price as you’d find anywhere else in Playas or in Ecuador. A liter of Pilsener (the beer to drink when you’re not drinking - has a flavor surprisingly reminiscent of Bud light or Coors light, ugh) is $1.25, a fried plantain is $.50, ice creams range from $.25 to $1.00. Unfortunately, I’ve found that when I ask the price, I get a higher quote that even Slocomb. And its not because of the Spanish, because I can totally ask for stuff with a completely non-US accent. I’ve been told its the blue eyes. Bummer.
The other places to get food on the beach are the about 50 or so ‘comedores’ or ‘food-makers’. There are so many of them (and they’re pretty much all the same) that they each have their own person standing outside saying, “We have the best fish, the best ceviche, the best whatever” to try to get people to come to their place and not another one. We have this one place that we like for breakfast - Comedor Freddy’s - because we can get coffee, a bolon (a lightly fried ball of plantain and cheese - yumminess!!), and a scrambled egg for $1.50. Yum!
The only downside to Playas is that there’s not a lot of nightlife, which isn’t really a problem for me. Slocomb wants to go out and do stuff at night, but there are only a few places in Playas to do that (and he always falls asleep before anyway). Salinas and Montanita are the party beaches, but I don’t really go to the beach to party. I go to the beach to go to the beach and eat really good food. I don’t think its fun to come back from the beach more tired that when you left because you were out until 4am every night, so I think Playas is the place for me. We’re still gonna try to go to Salinas and/or Montanita, but two trips to Playas are certainly not enough for me.
This week at school was kinda crappy. We had too many special events going on as well as meetings every day during recess about curriculum. I mean, its good to have curricular meetings, but they were not well planned. We met for each grade level - meaning that the national teachers only had to be in one meeting and I had to be in five. Not good planning, especially because we teach more hours than they do and there have less time to plan more. I dunno, there’s just not a lot of respect for us from the administration or from the students even. And its starting to get to me. Also this week, we had the tri-monthly birthday celebrations, which are fun, but a lot of prep work - mostly done by the national teachers, thank goodness. For us, it mainly just means a lot of meet and greet and being really ‘on our game’ for a while. We also had another special event for the preschoolers on Thursday (birthdays and special event in one day - not good for little kids in my opinion), so we’d spent the last two weeks teaching the kids songs and stuff to show off to their parents. Cute and fun, but not very relaxing and has the unpleasant tendency to throw off my schedule. I think that I’ve realized that my schedule (when everything goes according to plan) is at the top of my stress-handling level in the first place that when there are other things that come up, I just get overwhelmed. But the rest of the international team is great about taking up slack and helping each other out, but I don’t really think that the national team or the administration realize what its like to be us. Okay, rant over.
Last night Slocomb and I went to Pepe Luna’s (the music teacher/resident diva at school) birthday party. It was at this cool little cafe beside the river where a lot of the long-term gringos hang out. We got there about 9:30 (though the party was supposed to start at 8), but things didn’t really get started until 10:30 or 11. We ended up leaving about 11:30 because it got really hot and really smoky inside. Going out to clubs and stuff is a huge thing in Cuenca (that i’m not very good at), but I think Slocomb and I are going to try to start going out more. There are a ton of cool places to hang out and lots of people to meet, but we seem like old geezers sometimes. Oh well.
Alright, well, that’s what’s going on here. Oh, we also got internet back in our apartment!! So hopefully I’ll be able to blog more and more promptly!