Magic Was in the Air

Yesterday, we had a lunch date to meet Joe and Nora. This is our second home exchange in Cuenca where we will be living for the month of February. Joe suggested we meet at the Cuchara Magica (Magic Spoon) on Gran Columbia. Being early, we found the restaurant, but it was not between the cross streets that Joe had given us, nor was it across from the Hotel El Dorado as he mentioned. We were perplexed thinking it may a chain, we thought we may find another down the next two blocks. When we did not, we returned to where we were. 

Looking around the restaurant, there is a magical ambiance with half a tree decorating one wall with lanterns hanging. If you happen to survey the rest of the surroundings, you will find decks of playing cards artfully stacked on a shelf over the bar and do wander in the next room to see the escape artist’s tank. Works of great traditional magicians decorate the walls including one famous Ecuadorian and of course, Houdini. As it turned out Cuchara Magica’s young owner is the son of the owner of the Raymipampa restaurant. Raymipampa owners are now in the second generation.

Joe and Nora then drove us to their apartment. We drove for what seemed like forever before getting there, but it may have been the one-way streets that made it seem eternal. They said it is a 20-minute walk to the city center. Being that we love walking twenty minutes is doable. 

The apartment is HUGE by Ecuadorian standards. Joe told us it is 135 square meters or 1453.13 square feet. There is a living room/dining room combination with an open kitchen. The kitchen hosts a washer, dryer, and dishwasher. Down the hallway, you encounter three bedrooms, 3 ½ baths, but best of all, the building has an elevator. One of the four rivers in the city is the primary view out the windows; the gurgles of the running water can be heard creating a quite a soothing sound.  

I have to say that Joe and Nora are more than gracious. We will live in their apartment for a month, but they are only planning to use ours for one to two weeks. Joe kept saying their “apartment is meant to be used”.

We are certainly going to miss where we are staying now and the people we met. Across town feels like cities away.

After being oriented and handed keys, they dropped us off at the Modern Art Museum. It was lovely with a great display. It reminded me of a California high school with a large open courtyard with entry directly into individual rooms from the outside. Not all salas were open, but those that were had interesting art.  

Afterward, we walked to the park across the street. There were some trees in bloom with vibrantly yellow flowers. At one end of the park is  a Belgium craft beer place where we stopped for a beer. They just opened 8 months ago. Next month, they will have different beers.
We walked home making it about half way when the rain came again. Still time, I had an umbrella.

It has been great fun and an adventure to cruise through the markets for our food and then coming back here to cook it. We have really stuck to basic recipes, so there has not been anything fancy. However, everything has had a special taste imbued by the surroundings. 

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Our First Cuenca Apartment

Barbara's photo - Furniture rearranged now.

Cultural differences are apparent the minute you reach the airport here. The luggage was unloaded within minutes of our landing in Cuenca. We were out of the airport hailing a taxi 15 minutes after we left the plane. LAN Ecuador gets my vote for excellent service. This is not our first time with them and we will certainly not hesitate to use them whenever possible in the future. 

We grabbed a taxi to take us to the apartment we are home exchanging with, but the traffic was horrendous. The middle of the major road is being dug up for a new light rail tram system that should be completed next year. It took us longer than the 15-minute ride we were told to expect, making it more like a 25-minute journey. I kept my eye on the meter, knowing that Cuenca government has clamped down on taxis forcing them to use meters. When we arrived at the apartment, the meter showed our fare. $2.07! Yup, go back now and reread the time it took to get from the airport to the apartment and then look again at the fare. Shocker!

Sitting in the middle of the block, the apartment complex is four stories high, well maintained on the outside. Once you walk through large wooden doors, the next obstacle is huge metal gate. Malena, the building owner, buzzed us in; she came down to greet us. Inside the building, it is quickly obvious this building receives tender loving care. Beautifully tiled in light shades of brown, the staircases (no elevator) are airy. Each floor opens to the roof covered in glass admitting all the sunlight that is available at any given time. 

Our apartment is beyond our expectations, even after seeing photos. A tremendous living room/dining room combination has an extra-large flat screen television. Adjoining it is a narrow, but efficient balcony. Beyond the entry is a smallish, but well-organized kitchen. The stove is about 1 ½ the size of ours in Budapest and the refrigerator is like Goliath to our diminutive David. There are so many blinking lights on the door; we would need a degree to figure them all out. 

Two complete bathrooms will obstruct our ability to claim one is holding up the shower for the other. There are three bedrooms, but Barbara and her husband, our exchange partners, use one as an office. Barbara is a painter with some of her gorgeous work adorning various walls.

On the dining room table, we found a vase with roses and daisies, a bottle of Chilean wine, and a box of chocolates. Malena said Barbara left these for us. 

Malena and her ex-pat partner John, from Sacramento, gave us a full overview of where to get what in the city. Much of it was in and out; we were suffering from exhaustion from sleepless nights. They are most gracious and wonderful resources. Malena owns the entire building. From what she told Ron while I was speaking with John was that it took two years to remodel the building before she started renting the apartments. She really did an incredible job. However, modern inside the apartment, the border where the wall meets the ceiling and the ceiling itself has architectural touches that add class and style. No upkeep artificial wood floors throughout other than the tiled kitchen and bathroom floors, make it a breeze for cleaning. We have a housekeeper on Fridays, so we do not need to bother. 

On the next floor up, the entire space is a rooftop terrace. Under a protected area is a US imported washing machine and dryer for all tenants to us. A grill for cooking is part of a co-op of which our exchange is part of and dozens of chairs to sit and watch the world go by. The views are spectacular.

They told us there was a male couple living on the first floor, also ex-pats, from Georgia. When they said the names, it rang a bell. I had tried doing a home exchange with a male couple here in Cuenca, but they were not interested in Budapest in winter. Being the world really is small, as it happens; these guys live on the first floor of the same building. Malena and John said they would connect us. 

We did a three-hour walk around the city re-familiarizing ourselves with different markers we remembered from out last visit two years ago. The lack of sleep and changes in altitude sent us back to the apartment earlier than we usually would return. I had tried getting connected to the Internet via the Wi-Fi in the apartment, but could not get it accept the password Barbara left for me. Malena rescued me latter in the afternoon. She knew Barbara well enough to figure out the correct password. Even with all full bars of a connection, the Internet is still slow. 

One of our markets

Dinner was simple. We bought five avocados for $1 and three mangoes for $2. I think we were overcharged on the mangoes, but… At another stand, we found some incredible semi-hard white cheese and bought a half pound for $1.50. 

Tomorrow, the guys invited us to join them for lunch. They are meeting a lesbian friend. They educated us to the fact that Ecuador had rewritten their constitution two years ago giving all varieties of domestic partnerships equality under the law. Being that they are from Georgia, they went to New York to get married; they are getting their domestic partnership certificate here in Ecuador. They have been here for one year. In order to qualify for permanent residency, they are not allowed to leave the country for more than 90 days a year. Back in 2001, this was the same for us in Hungary, but it lasted for three years. 

More on Cuenca later. 

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A Lesson from the Ink Spots

There are many joys in planning a trip; however, as the song goes “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall”. Just the other day, I had mentioned to Ron how excited I was getting doing all of this preparation. Now that I am not teaching, there is time to focus on the particulars and share the research.

After successfully arranging two home exchanges in Cuenca, Ecuador to span our 6 week stay in that city, it seemed possible to find another exchange in Quito. It was not to be; either no one was interested or they had other plans for the time we needed. Disappointed, we turned to VRBO, AirBnB, and HouseTrip.

When Ron was busy doing other things of importance, I settled down to the computer to gather some information. On each of the sites, I favorite some potential rentals so the two of us could look at them with great scrutiny and a larger map than the sites provide. Foxy as they are, the sites do not show you exact addresses or even streets, but they place a large distinctive colored circle covering a wide area. Getting a sense of locations, we ruled out places along the way. For some of the places, it was easy to delete the ‘favorite’ bookmark, others I just didn’t bother.

We found a place that looked incredible, was within our price range, and the location was excellent. She was listed on one of the three sites I had checked. We sent her a request for a booking. Three days later, we had not heard, though the site claims an owner response within 24 hours.

As I was milling around, I noticed the same property on HouseTrip, so I sent another request. The rent was the same regardless, so it didn’t matter to me. Strangely enough, I received a confirmation of the booking within 12 hours. We were elated at our good fortune. I had a suspicion that the owner pays a smaller fee to HT for booking, so was ignoring the request from the other service. Within another couple of hours, the charge appeared on my credit card online account. Fair enough, I knew this would happen.

In a matter of hours, I received an e-mail from the property owner. She profusely apologized, but stated that the HT booking system made a mistake accepting our reservation without her agreement to it. Due to it being for March 2015, she said she could not plan that far in advance, so we should try again in January. We want to have things squared away and pay for the places we need to before we leave January 12th, so we will move on to alternate choices. None of them are on HouseTrip.

I sent HouseTrip messages explaining the situation via e-mail and Twitter. I find it very strange that they have this picture on the “Contact Us” page, yet I could not find a phone number for the service anywhere on the website. This is superimposed over the photo. “We are always there for you. Our multi-lingual service team of more than 100 people is ready to assist you, 24/7, 365 days a year.” My question is why do these people have earphones on if they are not answering phone calls? Do we care if they are used for their music listening pleasure?

Bravo! They responded with their need to confirm it with the owner. They did confirm it, BUT then took it upon themselves to send reservation requests to the 3 other places I had ‘favorited’. I had only saved them to show Ron, not because we were thrilled with them. So were they trying to get my $400 reallocated to another of their properties rather than crediting my charge card? There was informed consent communication about this, so I was ticked. I tweeted them and then wrote an e-mail. 

Here is the double BRAVO!! They wrote me back about two hours later, explained they put through a refund credit on my card and added a 10% voucher for the next use.

There will be a next time, because I like their layout, but this customer service, even without a phone number has cemented the deal.

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