Meta-Vacation

Anyone looking for a home?  I found this on the Internets under ¨homes for sale on Lake Como¨.  I can do a little scouting if you´re interested.

To Our Readers:


The rumors are true, I'm ditching Beth in a third world country made famous for its cocaine, coffee and kidnapping. (1). It's not to be helped.  My sister, the known contrarian, has decided to take herself off the market as she found a man willing to put a ring on it.  As a dutiful brother, an underemployed and poor one at that, I'm jumping on the first plane out to witness this historic and unexpected event.  I'll be photographing and blogging my way through matrimony, at your (whoever still reads this blog) expense.

The vows will be taken in Como, Italy, where I'll be hob-nobbing with the rich and famous, not to mention bringing down the collect class level of the place.  My vacation within a vacation will be one whole week-long and, forewarning you all, no one should expect a Euro souvenir, because I don't believe in supporting bad exchange rates.  I'm sorry, in advance.

From my last night in Bogota, until next Monday,

Jason "I'm going to eat so much pizza and gelatto in one week that I won't fit back into that cute little tanktop of mine" Vickers

(1) coffee, an oh-so-amazing drug.  We visited the coffee region after Cali, then moved on to Bogota, the capital of Colombia.  I tell you this because we are, for now, skipping the Salento Zona Cafeteria post.  It will be up in due time.  The significance of this for you is that this post brings us up to our current place of residence.  We are now on current JBT, or Jason and Beth Time, which hasn't been true for five months.  To prove this: Last night we watched the Rangers come back from a Madison Burgenmayer first half gem and win game 4, tying the series.  Good times.  I'm patting myself on the back, I'm patting the Rangers on the back and I'll be patting any new commenters on the back.  Cheers, to currency.  [Note: Sometimes the truth just hurts too much]

...Back to Cali, Cali (Colombia)

Because, at some point, people just don´t want to read...(1)

You´d think we could have given you a better lead picture of Cali, but in all honesty, it´s just not that pretty of a city. It´s known for it´s night life, Salsa to be exact, which we were too lazy to take in (or perhaps too intimidated, as many clubs had big signs with handguns encircled by a red X).

We were in Cali for one week and this is the one and only tourist excursion we took. Unfortunately they had no gorillas, no panda/polar bears, no crooked-necked giraffs and no sloths, my favorite exhibits at the zoo. I did have Beth though, which made it the most entertaining trip to the zoo I´ve been since my first time.

This picture doesn´t do this tiger justice. That paw is legitimately at least 1.5x larger than Beth´s head. No wonder children gawk when they get to this exhibit.

Da´ Steets, of Cali. And some old man in a plastic chair scratching himself. That about sums the streets up perfectly.

Takin´it to the steets...uh, lily pads. Beth took our trip to the zoo by storm, dancing, singing and trying to SAVE THE ANIIIIIMALLLLS.


Us leaving Cali after one week of relaxing. This is going to sound absurd, but the truth is, after traveling for almost 9 months now, we just needed a place to sit and relax. We made dinner everynight, watched movies, had a few glasses of wine and even caught a couple of baseball games on television. Sometimes a city may have a lot to offer and you just don´t really care, because you want to do absolutely nothing. I´m sure when we are back in our Cali that we´ll be waxing philosophical about how much we wish we were back traveling through South America, but alas, this was Cali (Colombia) for us, just like Sundays at home.

I´ve never been to a petting zoo with Beth, but I´d like to. I´m taking bets now on things she would get arrested for.

Disclaimer: Beth made me take this picture. I´m not, I repeat NOT, wondering where the titties are...

Question of the week: If you were a dead pig on display in a grocery store, what halloween costume would you choose? A pirate is definitely in my top 5. Jesus (Jewish), Hurley, A scandalous hospice worker and Tony Danza (in The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Pehnomenon) would round out my top 5.


Beth also made me take this picture, which, as I´m looking back through our pictures from our Cali days, makes me wonder if I´m genetically closer to monkeys than I realized. ¨Jason, put a plastic bag hat on your head.¨ ¨Ok.¨ ¨Jason, stand next to this monkey mirror and act REALLY surprised.¨ ¨Ok.¨ ¨Jason, pose with a tittie sign.¨ ¨Ok.¨



And the dignity goes on, and on, and on... Me, as a flamingo.

All I need is a cubicle, a banana and someone telling me to hit the keyboard and I´ll feel right at home.


Colombia has officially entered the pantheon of ¨greatest countries in South America¨. No, they don´t have poker rooms in their grocery stores (though that is a brilliant idea as well), but they do have Costco-style tastings which happen to include free beer...but no cocaine. (Note: Much to my dissapointment Colombian beer is, even free, subpar. We are in Bogota now and have ran across at least two brewpubs though, so I´m holding out on a final verdict.) 


(1) I´ve been contacted by the ADA, because apparently one of my old coworkers--and I won´t mention names (Caleb)--reported that this blog is not friendly to reading-troubled people.  And thus this post was derived.

Otavalo: Mega Market Mania

A overview of the enormity that is Otavalo´s market.


Shopping. To say I loath this word would be a lie, but disdain could work. It started at around the age of 8 when my mother would drag me around shopping with her on some sort of deranged play-date. As soon as she would release my little, innocent hand to peruse some dress rack, I would sneakily meander off designing a unilateral game of hide-and-go seek in which I would hide in the center of a clothes rack, while my mom frantically searched for me. My tiny little revenge for being enslaved in Nordstroms for two hours. As I got older I began to negotiate terms of shopping. At 10 I'd go with her if I could get the new Reebok pumps (all black with orange pumps of basketball-likeness). By 12 it was (to my eternal shame) t-shirts from the now all-but-defunct Millers Outpost. Never in my life do I remember enjoying shopping for the sake of shopping. Simply put, shopping brings out the worst in me, or at least the most capitalistic. (1)

Happy New Sweater Day, Jason. You deserve it. (Beth didn´t pay for this to get me to go shopping with her, though I should have tried to get something out of the deal)


Breaktime from shopping. Touchin´ it up at a cafe above the market.

This is why I was leery of South America's largest outdoor market, Bazaar really, Otavalo. The sole reason this city exist in any tourist guide is because of its famous market. A sleepy town on the weekdays, people begin showing up on Thursday, to assure themselves a place to stay for Saturdays market. The city's unimpressive main square is the purported center of this grandiose market, it's sadly diminutive. This only added to my anxiety as we showed up three days before the Saturday extravaganza.

Then I remembered my earliest childhood memory of shopping. A Mexico cruise at around the age of 6. It was a long time ago, but it was a time I enjoyed and perhaps the only time I truly enjoyed shopping. How was this possible I asked myself. And then I had an ephiphany, Spanish speakers. Latinos know how to handle a market. No roofs, no indoor mall, no rhyme nor reason to where specific items are located and most importantly no preordained prices. Nothing is set in stone, no item too good to discuss the end price. It's capitalism in it's freest "market" form. It's incredible, it's entertaining and everyone leaves a little mad after it's all said and done, but with the most efficient price. (2)

Admittedly, at worst it's a tad evil. Manipulative, at best. Us dependent upon our bank accounts, our propensity towards savings, but mainly our plain old simple chance (read: luck) of being born US citizens with options. They, dependent upon us and all that entails. Our worst case: no souvenir for little George. Their worst case: No food for Jorge. So, our bargaining chips are bigger and our consciousness a little heavier, but at the end of the day everyone leaves the market a little better off. And honestly, the bargaining, the challenge, the thrill, it's not always one-sided. It was reciprocated more than once, and that's when we all walked away happy. (3)


I live in a pink house, in a pink world, in a pink chair, in a pink shmok...la dida da di da
(Another break from shopping. Impulsively decided it was time to get a haircut.)


What you can´t see: My skinny jeans (80´s version), Ramones´ t-shirt and Breakfast Club DVD.

Note on Footnotes: Don´t be confused, read footnote (4).

(1) The grocery store was the only acceptable excursion. And let's be honest, that was not without reward, especially for a kid that always loved his food.

(2) this is not to say fairest price. It must be said that a couple of parsimonious travelers like ourselves have these people at a disadvantage, on the proverbial rope, if you will. We set a price, usually ridiculously low-balling what we know the going price to be. We then look at the item for an awkwardly long period of time, not strategically, but because we are both incoherently indecisive. At which time the salesperson usually takes this as a bargaining tactic and lowers the price at least twice and within an earhole of our asking price. Eventually, because we've went from frugal to stingy, we decide against the kitschy object. Invariably, because these people are-- more so than us and relatively speaking--desperate for the sale, as we are walking off they yell at us: "Ok, [fill in the price.]". It's guaranteed to work. It's unintentional, or has been in the past. Now we know and that, in this case, is well over 50% of the battle. This led to our undeniable success in Otavalo. I even began grading our transactions based upon the face of the retailer. The more enraged and the more relegated to their fate shown by a look of angry acceptance on their face, the better our negotiation, the better our deal and our budget. (4)

(3) We really did nothing of note outside of the market. However, I didn't mention the animal market above. It's a more local affair, seeing as the goods being bargained for are live farm animals. Every saturday in an open field just outside of town the surrounding herdspeople gather together (with a tourist or two interspersed) and post-up anything from their guinea pigs to their freshly delievered calves, with mothers tests and all. It's an amalgam of farm animals, people, smells, and Wall Street-like chatter between them all, including the death-cries of pigs on the block. Unique and worthwhile in its own right, even if you aren't looking to score a pot-belly, you at least leave with a cultural experience of which you are unlikely to find in the States outside of perhaps, Montana. (5)

Stayed: A Residencial for $3/person just down the hill from the central market. About two blocks, make a left, it's on the right. Bare bones, private room w/ tv and hot water in shared bathrooms. (6)

(4) Can you footnote a footnote? Whatever the case, that's what I (Beth) am doing. Unlike Bargain-for-Starvation Jason, I don't like to believe I was taking away little Jorge's food by bargaining for prices. I think it's part of the game, and I sincerely hope no children, animals, or vendors were injured during our excursion for sounvenirs.

(5) Despite my pleading, Jason declined using his self-rated 10 bargaining skills to buy-and-release any of the adorable baby animals at the market.

(6) Translation: This place was a shithole. We slept on top of a sheet we brought, carefully laid out on top of those provided by the residencial so that we wouldn't leave with any weird diseases. Our love for you may not be worth a sounvenirs more than a few US dollars (Ecuador's currency as well, in case you were interested to know http://www.mindspring.com/~tbgray/dollar.htm) but it does mean we would sleep in a craphole to fund your llama magnets and Che pencil toppers.


And now, a photo tour of Beth´s favorite part of the Saturday market, the animales:

Guinea Pigs are for eating.



Chickens are for eggs.
Baby Cow is for veal.


Not just kitschy souvenirs were for sale. Children, animals and fruit could be bought too.


Obstinate baby cows make bad veal.


Beth says ¨Bah¨to veal...and lamb.

Veg.

Enormous pig.
Animales. Muchos. Para Vende. A picture looking down on the cow-section of the animal market.

Not-so-enourmous pigs...piglets.

Beth says ¨Bah¨to veal...and lamb.

But not to piglets. Beth eating those cute little animals, if the cute little piglets were made of soy and called soyricharones.

Baños, enough said.

River rafting in Baños, no pun intended.

Let me just say that my plna here is to shy away from my emotionally and comedically stunted tendencies and leave the fodder of a town with a name like Baños alone. (1)  However, I must say that a certain irony must be mentioned here.  I´ve heard tell of certain people (I´ll leave them unnamed) berating my stomach, as well as my ¨lack of sack¨, due to my being ¨put to the toiled¨(my saying, clearly the blog is going to the proverbial John Crapper as I´m beginning to quote myself) by the Cuy.  In my own defense I proceeded to spend the next 2 weeks not far from a toilet.  Torturous bus rides, sleepless nights, dreams of diarrhea in perpetuity and a general malais e over my entire being.  Now I know it wasn´t to last.  The cure, an arrival to Baños. (2)

With that settled, we can move on to things of a more grand and mature nature.  Baños sits under Vulcan Tungurahua, one of the more active Volcanoes in South America, which is why you are unable, or rather disallowed, from hiking to its peak.(3)  This is intriguing to me and is one of many factors helping to breed my thoroughly immoral, not to mention morbid, solipiist, self-obssesed and moronic desire to witness an active volcano.  Let me explain myself.  You see, I don´t want a full-on explosion, nor destruction of humanity, culture, private property (God Bless the USA) or living souls.  No, I simply want to see some magma in a crater inside a volcano, with perhaps a few bits of ash (not enough to close an airport or shut down all of Western Europe, mind you); Just enough ash to captivate, to be awed by nature, to feel the vivacity of the Earth...a smidgeon of volcanic activity, to be precise.  And I know this to be possible because others of a more fortuitous ilk have told us tales of such adventure.  Alas, it was not to be in the cards for this band of lovers (gimme a break, it´s a play on words).  The volcano in Baños sat dormant for our week stay, silent, looming, but mostly just taunting my dreams of volcanic glory.  It was doomed from the get go: A) No hiking to the summit and B) before the volcano could provide its show of natural force, the Ecaudorian military decided to provide its own eruptive disturbance. 

I won´t go into much detail, just to say that Beth and I rushed to an Internet cafe after reading on the news that the Ecuadorian president, Raphael Correia, had been taken captive by the military.  As we raced through the normally active town, an ominous silence sat over every corner, with each and every citizen gathering round their televisions watching the drama unfold, the bullets, tear gas and  any other object-that-could-be-of-mild-to-severe-danger-if-used-as-a-projectile hurled through the air with abandon.  We thought we were about to become entrenched in the 1980´s all over again with military coups dominating Latin America.  Unbeknownest to us at this point, it was simply a protest (albeit a work stoppage segued into protest by police and military personnel--Ecuador, not exactly the bastion of stability it´s been made out to be over the last 10 years) gone awry, which [speculatively] the President is harnessing to cement a more authoratarian role for himself--something he appears fo have begun over the last few years and well before this ¨coup d´etat¨ (his words, not mine).  All this is to say we were nervous and thus decided to abide the State Department and hole up in Baños for a week.

Our self-imposed city arrest forced us into action.  After two days of perpetual crime shows, including CSI: Everycity, we decided it was time to leave the confines of our cel...room for something other than food and a walk. No volcano, no problem.  After getting cat-called--really there is no more appropriate phrase for what tour operators do to gringos, male or female, in SA--by every agent in Banos, we finally sucked it up and fell for the used-bicycle salesman routine.  $5 each, all day use of bikes, and the idylic destination of no less than five cliffside waterfalls.  We biked, we viewed, I sweated, and we conquered the easily conquerable.  Willow could have done this ride on a unicycle, but we managed to stretch a solid day out of it.  We almost did a 1km zip line, except the line was saggy and rusted, ran by a roadside family and looked like you had to go down using an old bent hanger.  Not confidence inspiring.  We enjoyed watching the "bungee jumpers", though bungee swing might be more accurate.  $15 for two people is a steal, but both of us were luke-warm about doing it, so, we watched. We rode some more, we saw a few more waterfalls and ate some PBJ's.  Good day.

This waterfall falls onto the road.  A gorgeous bike ride indeed.

Waterfalls...Helmets...Tiempo Libre

The highlight of Banos, for us, was not the internal strife of a nation, but water rafting. (4). Beth has braved Class I rapids and I haven't been since I was 9.  But the prospect of, supposedly, Class IV rapids (out of VI) was too much to pass up--not to mention a price tag of $22.50 each.  Who knew Banos would be bargain basement. (5)

So, we embarked upon 2 1/2 hours of rapids, Class III & IV, with a few breaks in between--once to see a recently created waterfall (due to a rockslide) and another venture up a tributary in which we jumped off rocks into the river and the guide gave us a pseudo-drown session in which he dunked our heads under a waterfall then proceeded to have us float downstream, emulating what we would experience if thrown from the raft.  Conveniently this occurred after our first level IV rapids, but presumably less dangerous than the forthcoming ones.

The most ecstatic person at the finish line: The Guide.

This proved true, at least to my limited--although to be fair when you almost get thrown out of a boat that is emerged in water and just barreled over a rock four times as large as said boat the perceived danger seems obviously self-apparent--knowledge of river rafting.  Beth later said that my entire upper body was out of the boat and in the river and since our boat was completely immersed from the water (fall) flowing over the rock, that seems plausible.  The one thing keeping me in the boat was my near ball'n'chain death grip to the foot rope. (6). The girl next to the Beth later said she too almost went swimming, which Beth doesn't remember as she was overwhelmed with worry due to my limited swimming ability. (7)  Thirty minutes and a few more, though less harrowing, rapids later we were finished, to our utter dismay. (8).

River rafting is amazing.  Coups, even falsely named coups, are not.  Bikes are cool.  Crime shows are not (except Law and Order: SVU, starring Ice Cube as detective Tutuola).  And Banos was a fantastic place to bide our time before moving on through Ecuador.    


(1) If you don´t know what baño means, clearly you´re UnAmerican.
(2) Double irony, in fact.  My irony being I spent little time in the bathroom in Baños.  The double irony of it all being that we happened to be in Baños as Ecuador went to shit, but that´s getting ahead of the narrative.
(3) Purportedly the biggest Volcano in Ecuador, it goes by such sobriquets as: ¨The Throat of Fire¨ and ¨The Black Giant¨.  
(4) the name of the town itself is actually representative of the baths which adorn the city.  Being located under an active volcano creates thermal springs and an easily harnessed hot water source.  So, the town built a truckload of pools (concrete, like ours) then filled them with heinously discolored thermal water, from the enticing poop brown (makes Banos a double entendre in my book) to the more mysterious lime yellow--a color that is quite indescribable.  Needless to say, We went swimming in the river while rafting, but not into the overly crowded, and quite aptly named, pool bathrooms.
(5) Our hostel, a private with an ensuite bathroom and cable television, was only $4 each a night.  And there was a kitchen.
(6) to keep begineer, and probably expert as well, rafters in the boat there are ropes going across the bottom of the boat where your feet are located.  You hook your feet between the boat and this rope, so when you hit a rapid, a rock or any other form of jolting your feet keep you anchored to the boat and thus in the boat.  I had my feet in up to my ankles and the bruises to prove it, the next day.
(7) I beat Beth in freestyle a month prior, to her great dismay.
(8) both Beth and an Aussie girl were cajoled into riding on the front of the boat.  Picture those mechanical bulls in Mexico, but on the front of a plastic boat and with class III rapids waiting to welcome you to their fold. I'd like to say Beth was screaming maniacally, waving her hand in the air like a cowgirl and wearing a wide-brim 10 gallon hat, but it's be only partially true.  After the rapids I did push her off the boat, at the direction of Jorge, our guide.  (9)
(9) Jorge the previous week took the founder of facebook on the same trip and had the Ecuadorian newspaper clipping to prove it.  Jorge was a riot.    

And now, a photo montage of Baños:

Nice Chucks.

Bored in Baños.  Found this t-top in my bag and let Beth talk me into trying it on...and making that face...and doing that pose...and posting in a publicly accessible website.  At least I´m not grabbing the breast of a cardboard cutout of the Secretary of State.

Tunnel Vision.

Slowly turning into, I´m not sure what, but clearly I´m not proud of it.

Somos Amigos de Bebe Beluga

Nothing beats Do-Ri-Tos...and whales

Like the wisdom imparted upon us by our dear childhood friends Sebastian and Nemo, there is little that trumps the magic and mystery of what takes place under the sea. (1) Even a glimpse into the majestic lives of our underwater companions can cause one to gasp and marvel. And in Puerto Lopez, gasp and marvel we did.

The town itself is a beachside dirt- landing, equipped with plenty of shanty hospedajes and overpriced, bad food. So we went straight from the bus to drop off our bags in our less-than-clean hotel and straight onto the water.  With some helpful lies from our apparently well-informed-on- foreign-affairs tour operator (who, in order to fill up the boat with 6 people, so we could go on the trip,  cunningly told the Venezuelan family (2) he booked that  we looked like gringos because we were Argentinian, not because we were the capitalist- loving, oil-hungry, spoiled and ignorant arch nemesis Americans), we were out on the water within an hour of arriving.

Though ive never been, I've heard of whale watching before---that after hours of mistaking distant water ripples for humpbacks, some folks may or may not have seen the big wonders in action. I don't know if the gods were coming together to promote peace,  encorage the unlikely bonding between supporters of Hugo and Obama, or if Islas Bellanas pumps a brilliant mix of steroids and cocaine into the ocean water, but this was something else, something I can only hope to explain by describing my emotions that went with it.

A Mother humpback giving Beth the old ¨what up, my veggie friend¨.

After driving off the coast towards the island of Isla Ballenas to deeper water, within 15 minutes we were in the midst of one of the most fascinating shows I have yet to witness. A mother humpback, astoundingly grand, amazingly acrobatic and astonishingly beautiful swimming playfully next to her young, vivacious calf. Almost instantly, the whales were playing within 2 meters of our small fishing boat (made tiney-weenie in relation to the gargantuan mother whale), with the baby bounding out of the water, sometimes up to 90% of it's body almost vertical above the water.  There they played for the next 2 hours, our boat following along with never a dull moment. Endless jumping, the little guy just never tired! An experience I can most accurately describe as out- of- this- world, a sudden rush of emotion after being instantly drowned in so much beauty. The intensity of happines, of marvellment and wonder, most easily comparable to other two moments in my life where costco- sized beauty humbled and overwhelmed me: witnessing the birth of my niece and the first sight of Iguazu Falls. Yes, that it is to say, I nearly cried of joy and pure wonder.  

Beth is almost crying just looking at the photos.  Seriously, we saw this exact thing happen about 100 times in the few hours we were out there.  Incredible.  ¨A Whale out of Water, III.¨

I believe this is maneuver is called CANOOOONNNNNBALLLL!

If I was driving the boat, I might still be out there. But as this was not the case, here I am in my once-again too-dirty hotel room, relishing in reliving my all-too-short friendship with Bebe Beluga.  

We put all three photos of ¨A Whale out of Water¨ up because those are the only three we got, and we are sharing, whether you like it or not..

¨A Whale out of Water, II¨

(1) yes, even that sometimes pridefully, sometimes masculine Dickers watched The Little Mermaid.
(Note: he added this footnote, not me. "Pridefully masculine" wouldn't be in my top ten adjectives...)
(2) This clever ploy quickly disintegrated when they tried to speak to use in Spanish, and our response was a twister- face expression of bafflement. All was well, however, when they confessed they were the only vegetarians in all of Venezuela, who used to live in the good ole USA, where their son was born.) P.S. Fascinating fact of the day: Gas costs 4 cents a gallon in Venezuela. I'm guessing hybrid cars are not so popular there. Interesting  insight of the day; We were also told by our first Venezeulan friend that if gas were to go up there, Hugo would most likely be ousted by the people.  

Note: Getting photos was nearly impossible.  We took about 100 photos and these were the only ones that contained whale and not splash.  

An acrobatic whale like none ever before witnessed in its natural environment, except Willy.

A fin.

A blowhole.

Cuenca: It means bowl, in Spanish

I don´t think Cuenca needs to be on your bucket list.

Robin Hood
Surely no Men In Tights.  More importantly an utter aberration from the "rob the rich, give to the poor" plotline of yesteryear.  No, this takes a more Ridley Scott approach, a holier-than-though leader, lots of action, heroism, and starring Russel Crowe, as chivalrous as coats and mud and not farting in public.  

The classics all make an appeareance, from little John to Friar Tuck (who is most accurate to historical representation, thus most appealing to my sensibilities) and King John to the Sheriff of Nottingham, but many show up and remain in bastardized forms, including Robin himself.  The plotline is not all bad, though no Gladiator.  Unfortunately (and perhaps pleasantly) it was similarly structured.  War scene segues to main character development (hero worship?) segues to good beating evil (evil being the French in this case, which feels too easy, but is always enjoyable), all tied together with a few tedious Russ speeches motivating the hords of desperate-for-a-hero Brits.  The movie has its bright spots and, though not awful, it is simply "watchable".

Shrek 3:
Shit, or rather for the intended age group, poop.  Though not one for kiddy animation I admit that Shrek 1 and 2 were witty, dynamic, even enjoyable to my pessimistic palate.  Shrek 3 was simply not.

The Bucket List:
No Easy Rider and defintely no Shawshank.  Morgan Freeman was his always affable and likeable self, while dirty Jack has become creepier and more ridiculous over time (though he plays a rich egomaniac well enough).  It was touching enough, in a crispy creme donut kind of way, but not exactly a treatise on life and death as much as an hour and a half to waste with Jack and Morgan.

Why, might you ask, am I writing about movies?  Because we had our first DVD player, essentially, all to ourselves and access to an abundant selection offered by the hostel.  We watched at least six films in three days, and attempted to watch Inception, but failed because Kramer did a subpar job filming at the theatre (this leaving us with an unwatchable DVD).  Note: Ironically, films illicitly "shot", or so I would presume, contain the FBI warning letting all viewers know of the potential pitfalls of illegally distributing, obtaining, possessing or watching bootlegged DVDs.

Cuenca is a beautiful colonial town, perhaps the most well put together town from top to bottom that we have encountered so far.  No overtly poor neighborhoods, no shantytowns, no half-crumbled inhabitated unhabitable habitations, like an American (US) suburb in fact, red-tiled roofs and all, but more Catholic.  The funny thing about beauty, or at least obssessively constructed cleanliness trying to pass for beauty, is that it has a propensity towards the vapid.  This is to say it is unendearingly boring.    Thus, we watched films.  Some better, some worse, but a pleasure to catch up on a few summer blockbusters (some more bust than block) and finally, or eventually, get out of town.  A relaxing few days and a peaceful entrance into the much maligned Ecuador. (1)

(1) maligned by travelers in South America far and wide.  Not for its lack of beauty and culture, but for its more nefarious underbelly of petty criminals, and some not so petty.  Everyone we've  met who has traveled through Ecuador has been robbed; whether by knife, gun, distraction, pick-pocket or a slice of the old trusty backpack, it seems almost an inevitability.  Knock on wood.               

Searching for pictures...still searching...fine, this is a nice building.

We found this picture of me in Cuenca from 10 years ago and thought it would be a nice juxtaposition to current day Cuenca.

This picture doesn´t do this church justice.  We´ve seen LOTS of churches, and this was arguably one of the nicer ones. Well done Cuenca, you do churches and pirated dvd´s with the best of them.