18 Oct 2005

Me showing off the skills at the ceramics place.

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Friday night I was to meet friends at the new bar that was opening in town. It was a block from my hostal, but my friends could not remember the name of it. Anyway I waited an hour at the wrong bar before I asked someone where the new bar was. I found it and was out dancing till after 3am. I forgot about this from other visits, but instead of friends dancing in a circle like they do in the US, friends dance in lines facing eachother.

This saturday I went on a formal city tour of Cuenca finally. The guides name was Xavier and he knew english because he was an exchange student in the back country of North Carolina at one point. He said "aint gonna" all the time. We went to a traditional ceramics place and also the famous ceramics place of Eduardo Vega, an art museum, churches, and central park. The nuns at the cathedral sell a healing potion made of who knows what for 25 cents a cup, supposed to cure all ills. I tried it and it was really gross, despite the pretty purple color- it tasted like grass, carmex, and watery grape juice all mixed together.

Me at Cajas.

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Sunday I went to Cajas, which is a national park near Cuenca. It was beautiful and quiet and there were hardly any other people there. My guide was Xavier again, who was awesome despite his raging hangover. the elevation is 4100 meters, which is what? 12, 500 ft above sea level or so. Anyway it was way up there and you could definitely feel the elevation. Xavier chose a challenging route to wear off his hangover and it was interesting to only be able to go 20 steps uphill before a rest. I cant wait for kilimanjaro which is 19,000 ft!!

Monday had dance class (I signed up for extras) to continue trying to become coordinated. Was slightly better than previously.

Anyone who knows me knows I dont like margarine- its gross, but is all people seem to consume here because it is cheap. Beautiful fresh delicious bread rolls every morning, and then to ruin them with bright yellow yucky ick. I am dealing with it- I suppose I could carry my own supply.

At Cajas- weird twisted hobbit forest.

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I learned coffee in the am seriously inhibits my learning. I switched to tea.

We had a couple days of rain last week and suddenly all the locals are all sickly and coughing and sneezing. Probably viruses love it here because of all the kissing on the cheeks that is done here- easy to spread pestilence.

No luck getting change for large bills unless you buy something expensive. I asked some other people about it and they agree there is a serious shortage of one dollar bills. Also the stores do not have credit card machines. Hopefully the airports do.

I am having vivid weird recurrent dreams and I am not even on the malaria preventive yet. These dreams involve a very large harlequin great dane with heart problems. Also other random dogs too- maybe it is the constant street dogs barking and fighting that I am hearing. Maybe the great dane represents my sickly spanish. Whatever.