"If It´s Gray Don´t Eat It"

It´s not always rainy in Cuenca. I guess for 3 weeks before I got here it rained almost constantly, but its been pretty sunny thusfar. It basically rains in the morning, clears up, gets pretty warm, then clouds over, cools down, starts raining and gets cold at night. It´s almost like having 4 seasons in one day. Not bad.

Last night we stayed at a hostel called Cafecito. It was less than $9 for me to stay with two new friends, and it was louder than a bunch of monkeys. The hostel is also a bar, and our room opened to an enclosed garden. It was beautiful and if I weren´t at an internet cafe I´d post a picture. I´ll try to do that tomorrow or perhaps tonight. On the other side of the garden is a discotheque. It was bumpin till 2:30 probably but I managed to fall asleep. Tonight we´re moving into a house where we´re paying less. We´ll be there for a week, or until we can find a suitable permanent place. The guy who runs the show is probably my age, and he asked me if I want to play basketball and soccer with them. I said yes. He doesn´t even know I´ve got mad ballin skillz. Steve, you know what I´m talkin´about.

We´ve spent the last few days tromping around the city in search of the perfect apartment. No place seems to fit that criteria, most likely because Dan and Libby, a wicked-cool couple from Colorado, has already found the perfect apartment. Their balcony --complete with a multi-colored hammock-- overlooks the south side of the city, the mountains, and a roaring river. This is a beautiful river, although people like to throw trash into it. This I don´t understand. The way this city functions, you place your trash outside and someone comes to get it. It doesn´t seem to matter what day it is. The city of Cuenca prides itself on being clean, and for the most part it is. Why people feel better driving a truck to the bridge, throwing trash into the river and driving away is beyond me. I´ll post a picture soon of Dan and I on his balcony. I don´t think there is any trash in the photo. Also, the sunsets here are for real. Sunrises are blocked by clouds but hopefully that will change when the rainy season ends.

One more observation. There are no stray cats here. There are plenty of stray dogs running around, and I haven´t pet any of them. People here don´t treat their dogs like those in the US do, and needless to say the dogs don´t treat them as well either. I miss my dog and canine affection in general, but I don´t want to get rabies. At least not until I´ve been here longer. Anyway, there are no stray cats. I thought they were everywhere but no. Maybe the dogs have eaten them all, or maybe they´ve taken to the deadly poinsettia trees, which are beautiful, plentiful and a feline favorite. I´m on top of this and I´ll have an explanation soon.

Oh yeah, and one last thing. The title of this page. We went on a walk as a group and I was talking with a girl from England, Claire, as we ventured through an open market. We found ourselves in the meat section and I wasn´t quite prepared. I´m not sure I can eat meat anymore until I´ve looked a pig head square in the eye and dealt with the reality of it all. Yesterday I wasn´t so brave. There were piles of organs, heads of strange creatures, gizzards, and livers as big as my head (I have a big head). I told Claire I wasn´t sure what to make of it all and she said, "My rule is: if it´s gray don´t eat it." I agreed completely. I feel we can apply that anywhere, not just the meat market.

The juice here is amazing. Seriously, its fantastic. Thanks for reading.

Waking Up In Cuenca

This is a shot from my hostal. It's the local market, about to be set up for the day.

It’s taken a couple days for me to get this started. This is mainly due to stress, anxiety, terror and piqued interest in just about everything. Not really terror, I just wanted to throw that in. I landed in Quito on Wednesday night after a dreadful time stuck on the plane with my least favorite person in the history of Earth. I’ll get to that in a minute. When I landed, Daniel, a co-worker whom I had not previously in person (though we’ve been corresponding for well over a year via copious amounts of emailing). Daniel was great, he drove me to his apartment where I rented a room and then stayed up talking about computers until midnight. All who doubted my nerdness can now rest their cases.

Quito is huge. It’s sprawling in two directions and is built on hills. There’s a definite beauty to it, which you’ll see in the photos, but I don’t think I’d want to live there. Too much pollution, too many crazy drivers, and a bit too heavy on the crime from what I’ve heard, although I myself never felt endangered. I didn’t spend much time in Quito proper, as Daniel lives outside the city, but the drive through was pretty fun. Cops don’t do much and I believe on several occasions I saw a light that was both red and green. Even Daniel didn’t know what to make of it.

At 10am Thursday I caught a plane to Cuenca. I gave up my seat on the bus to the plane to a very old woman (which any half-decent half-wit would do) and a woman called me a caballero. It made me feel awesome. Maybe she was stunned to see an American going out of his way for someone else. I guess I’m breakin’ down those stereotypes one at a time –that’s what I’m here for.

So before I tell you about Cuenca, I’m going to fast-forward to last night. I’m at Café Eucalyptus, which is a nice, but wholly American, restaurant/bar in central Cuenca. I say wholly American as though I’m not wholly American, but whatever. I’m at a table with 3 of my new coworkers, with whom I’ve been scurrying about the city all day. Bob, Ellen and Brittany are their names. They seem pretty great so far. As I’m settling into my seat and Bob orders a pitcher of sangria, I suddenly hear someone yell from across the room: “Hey! GUY ON THE PLANE!”

Cuenca is absolutely beautiful. It reminds me of the French Quarter in New Orleans but with less crime, more street vendors and fewer English speakers. The streets are mainly cobblestone and there is food everywhere. Lots of little bakeries you’d imagine seeing in Italy or France. The cathedrals are spectacular. On my way to my hostal, I walked in the shadow of the first one built here and could not believe my eyes. There’s nothing in the US like it. Across from the Old Cathedral there is a new one being built and in between there’s the city square. Lots of beautiful flowerbeds, winding paths and park benches. People here seem relatively happy and friendly. The guy at my hostal thinks its funny to watch me struggle with Spanish, even though he speaks decent English.

Ellen, my walking partner all day, made friends with a guy named Juan who is an Ecuadorian version of my cousin Ben. He popped his collar midway through the day. He showed us around, let us see a house near the university with 2 rooms for let. He walked us back across the river, which is pristine, and showed us where to salsa. Great guy. I’m staying in the hostal where he works tonight with Ellen and one other person, yet to be determined. Should be more fun than staying alone.

Let’s go back to the plane ride. I’m situated right next to the engine but, unfortunately, its not loud enough to drown out the jabbering –or snoring, as the case was later—of a horrible human we’ll call Rick. Rick is about 55 or so, sweats like a monkey, and, judging from how many times he went to the restroom on the plane (4) and for how long each trip was (15 min at least) he probably has prostate issues. Normally I’d feel bad. But Rick is the guy who is one second faster, one inch taller, lifts 1 more pound, knows 1 more important person than you do. He’s also a multi-millionare, or so he claims.

Rick grinned at me when I sat down and said Good luck. Rick proceeded to tell me about all the things the US has done to ruin Latin America (and the rest of the world). I more or less agreed that the US has had their hand in some shady business worldwide. Then he found out that this is my first time out of the country and he was extremely insulted. Rick, I’ll have you know, has lived in several countries and develops property. He claims that he wrote the proposal for Eco-Tourism 30 years ago, which is probably crap. He then went off about Costa Ricans (who are all thieves), Jews (who are racist), people in Brazil and Thailand (who are filthy and dangerious), and every US city (which are ugly and full of horrible people). I learned that there are no decent people in the US and no one is happy.

Finally, I got fed up and told him to renounce his citizenship and stop complaining.

Rick got mad.

He asked me how many hours I work per week, guessing 5 hours a day. I said closer to 60. He asked what I do and then said that teaching is the easiest job on Earth. Then he asked how much money I give to the Nature Conservatory and when I said nothing he started saying “Yeah! Good American! Yeah! Nice!” and started sweating really bad.

I put on my headphones.

And now, 24 hours later, in a Cuenca café he’s sitting behind me. Anyhow, I order a hamburger because I just don’t want to rush into Ecuadorian cuisine and I’ve got a real hankering for some beef. We’re all enjoying ourselves, drinking sangria and laughing because I’ve told my new friends about Rick already. As I start to take my first bite I hear him yell, “I'll make you a deal: if you promise never to order a hamburger here again I’ll introduce you to the manager.”

I turned around and said “How about this Rick, if you never speak to, or look at me again I won't complain."

His eyes crossed. He looked stunned and hurt. I realized he honestly though we were friends.

He started to laugh then, and muttered a reply, which I can’t remember. I then told him to hold his thought and get back to me when I find myself remotely interest in what he has to say. That response was edited strongly, due to some young viewers.

Rick finished his glass of wine and left. I will probably see him again and he’ll have likely forgiven me for what I said. I don't aim to write of him again, though. There are plenty of interesting people here, including Bob, a coworker who rode his motorcycle through Mexico and Guatemala, and spent 13 years working on an organic dairy farm outside Fort Collins. More later. Hope you guys weren’t bored.

P.S. Julie, there's no DST here. I'm on Central time!