bus ride to cuenca day 2

After having our souls healed in Patate, we boarded the bus early the next morning and road from 8am till 5pm to arrive in Cuenca. Unfortunately, a few of the students got motion sick and we used all the vomit bags we had on board. We´ve bonded so, that the students were great about nursing each other. We played games, sang, slept, etc. Emotions got high as we rolled into Cuenca.

Our first stop was CEDEI, the university. The parents were already there waiting. Our group of students sat in one room and one by one the parents were brought in and introduced. Then a student´s name was called, they hugged and everyone in our group clapped as if the student and parent had just won an award. It was quite spontaneous but demonstrated how our group of students have bonded. It has been nice to get to know some SU students this well. I usually just meet them in class.

I enjoyed chatting with a few of the parents and was happy that my Spanish was enough to communicate. I might add that I studied quite a bit on the bus, which was helpful.

After the students went home with the parents it was our turn to walk to the hostel, which will be our home for the next 3 weeks. Much to my surprise, we have been given the best rooms in the place and I have my own bathroom. what a treat to be able to unpack and to have my own bathroom. Most of the rooms share a bathroom that is down the hall.

After settling in all of 15 minutes, we were off again to a birthday party. It really pays to know people. Anne, you will be interested to know that Steve was there, the former director of CEDEI. He was there with his new girlfriend who seemed very nice. She has traveled a lot and spent several years living in Italy, so I could understand the attraction. Steve is now Vice President or Provist of a university in Quayaquil, so it was interesting to talk with him about the university. In fact, he remembered that my area is educational technology and asked me if I were interested in going there to do some consulting with his faculty. So who knows what will come in the future......

The party was hosted in a restaurant in Cuenca, across the river. They are famous for grilling their meats, especially steak, and we for several hours the food and wine was just flowing. They put the food on the table and everyone helped themselves. After all that the bill for everyone was $12 each. very cool!

bus ride to cuenca day 1

Greetings gang. It took 2 full days to travel from Quito to Cuenca, and I would definitely recommend the ride. On the way south, our first stop was to Technirose, a huge nursery where they grow roses. Wow..... Orman would be impressed. Acres and acres of roses. They ship about 25,000 a day on average but for Valentines day they ship 100,000 per day. We got the full tour, from the fields, to picking, to trimming and packing. Beautiful. A short walk from the garden was a beautiful hotel. We´re talking in the middle of nowhere here. I´m amazed how people find these places but I met a woman there from Seattle who was going the the Galopagos. The hotel used to be a plantation and it was quite historic. We were treated to afternoon tea while a band played. Naturally I bought the cd...more using to practice our salsa Jeff!

Several hours later we stopped for lunch. I doubt the health department would have approved but our guides ate so we did too. We all ordered the special of the day...soup, rice, chicken, and potato cakes. I suspect the chicken was just captured from the back yard. At any rate we saw them take it from the spit right on the street and bring it into the restaurant. Restaurant is really too fancy a word for the place...just a hole in the wall spot. j

Then it was off to ride through the Andes at 17,000 feet. Several hours of winding up and down the mountains, sometimes on cobblestone rode, most of the time of dirt path. It was a one lane road of course and naturally we passed several trucks. There were cheers all around each time we failed to careene off the cliff. not sure how to spell careene but you get the idea.

There were multiple conversations on the bus questioning our destination. The girls concluded that as long as it was clean, they were not going to ask for more. We were already warned that where we would be staying we would have not access to a store, much less a bar for nightlife. We were in the middle of indigenous country. It is amazing how they can plow right up the mountain using the hand plows and ox. We saw lots of farm with both men and women working in the fields. and lots of children passing the time playing along the side of the roads.

After hours of winding we finally arrived at Hacienda Leito. If you can, be sure to Google this place. I´m sure Anne went but she was much too quiet about how great this place is. The mormans say that the white room in their temple is as close as they can get to God, but I disagree. It think it is this place in Ecuador. It used to be the home of Jesuit priests. Then it was a single home and now it is a hotel. But it sits high, extremely high, in the Andes. The view is incredible. The landscaping is beautiful, and there are the usual amenities...pool, massage, workout room. The rooms are in different buildings and the main lobby and dining area are separate. After dinner, there was a fire lit in the fireplace that is in each room. I had enough wood in the room to keep the fire going until about midnight and the fireplace was still warm in the morning. Wow!

When we arrived, it was not long before we realized that we were hearing a constant roar of thunder. It turned out to be the sound of the volcano eruption. After dark, we could see the red glow that looked like fireworks as it erupted and then spilled down the mountainside. very amazing!