Wednesday, Oct 12, 2016
Today is a running day. I don’t mind running but it really causes me to breathe hard. I can keep up with Chase and Easton for about a third of the way down the river, then I start to lose ground. I’m not terribly far behind them but it feels like it. Still, I try to catch my breath as quickly as I can walking, then start running again. Today it took me about 35 min to run our 3 mile loop.
Since it’s Wednesday, and big vendor day at Feria Libre, we took Christian there to show him how a lot of Ecuadorians, and some expats like us, do their shopping. I’m so used to it by now it nothing phases me here. I do remember the sense of overload on my senses…the talking of so many people at once only registering as one uncoordinated, frenetic mass of out of tune pitches and tones, the smells of raw meats with its pungent aroma of blood, and the visual brilliance of colors from piles of and piles of fruits and vegetables. I think Christian did a great job of going with the flow of the place.

Pick Your Meat

Where are the strawberries?

Colorful Fruits and Vegetables

Pork Anyone?

Bus stop by our house
By the time we got back home, put everything away, and headed out again it was 2:30 pm. We hadn’t had lunch and we decided to eat at Turi. Chase wanted to give Christian an opportunity to swing out over Cuenca. We took the bus from our house to Solano, that part went well.
At Solano we waited for a bus that said Turi. We were waiting for about 20 minutes when the bus finally drove by…but it kept driving. We were waving our hands for it to stop but it went to the corner and turned. An older man at our bus stop motioned for us to go around the corner to get it. So I guess we didn’t understand where the Turi bus stop is at? This was weird.
We all ran around the corner and up the road, five crazy gringos chasing a moving bus. The bus had pulled over about a block up the road. When I got the driver’s attention, he was sitting in his seat behind the closed glass door of the bus, and I asked if he was going to Turi? He just motioned his hand back to the bus stop we were at and then looked back down at his newspaper.
This is when it is a royal pain in the ass to speak only very basic Spanish. What does he mean pointing behind him? Why isn’t he going? Is he just on break? At this point it was after 3 pm and I just wanted to eat. I’m starving and very grouchy. Hangry.
We flagged down a cab and headed to Turi. When we got to Turi we checked out the restaurants we saw there and they were all closed. Uuugh. We did find a little hole in the wall that was only serving salchipapas…hot dog pieces in french fries. I guess I’m not really starving after all. I passed.
We walked up the several steps to the swing area and took in the view overlooking Cuenca. The boys had a hot canelazo and then they headed to the swing. Heidi and I decided to forgo the additional climb to the swing area and sat on the bench like lizards warming ourselves in the sun.

Christian swinging over Cuenca
It was almost 5 o’clock when we finally made it back to our place, and we immediately ate the left over spaghetti from last night. It was a great “snack” and took away my hangry. Later Chase and Heidi made BBQ chicken pizza which they have perfected to a tee.
Chau.
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