I got an e-mail today from a friend, wondering if we have had any luck selling our house. I guess this means I had better send a letter and update this blog, eh?
We put our house on the market in April. Sold it in a month. Spent a frantic month selling, giving away or packing (more of the former than the latter) everything we owned. We moved into a horrible hotel with our kitty cats and spent another month selling cars, getting cats certified for the move to South America, setting up bank accounts, getting visas, etc. On June 13 we got on a plane (but kitties were bumped---awful story! They are still in New York waiting for me to be able to come back and get them!) and flew to Guayaquil, in southern Ecuador. There, Robert was greeted with open arms. I was told that my visa was not recognized by the Ecuadorian government (the consulate in New York had made a typo in my passport, making me a "political refugee" rather than a "dependent spouse") and I was told I had to get on the next plane back to the United States. Not a wonderful experience (being hauled into a windowless room, being denied access to a bathroom, not knowing what had happened to Robert) but I dealt with it as I usually do in similarly trying circumstances, by telling myself, "Someday this will be a funny story!" Unfortunately, that day has not yet arrived...
Here's Robert in our storage unit. We are going to be shipping about 6,000 of our books once we get our residency visas...
We are here in Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador, and its cultural capital. Cuenca, in Spanish, means "basin," because the city sits in a depression into which four rivers tumble. We are two degrees south of the equator, but because we are in the Andes, 8,500 feet above sea level (that's half a mile higher than Denver), it isn't hot here. The sun rises and sets at the same time every day, and the weather is spring-like. The lower air pressure doesn't hold heat the way it does at lower elevations, so people say in Cuenca, every day has all four seasons. It is spring in the morning, summer at noon, fall in the evening and winter at night. But the winter is a mild one, at about 52 degrees (great sleeping weather!) and the summer tops out at about 72 degrees. It rains here almost every day for a little while, and the cloud formations are usually amazing. Here's a picture:
Cuenca is also a World Heritage city. That means it is one considered by the international community to be of special beauty, history and culture. It is like having a historic designation in the United States. No old building can be torn down or changed without first obtaining an impact report and approval. The result is that the 100-to-400-year-old buildings have been saved, and the colonial aspect of the city remains. Cuenca's history goes back much further than that, to a Cañari civilization called Tomebamba, about a thousand years before the Inca invasion. When the Spanish arrived in around 1535 the Cañari decided to join with them against the Inca. Never a good idea, siding with the Spanish...
Right in the middle of town there is a huge archaeological park featuring the ruins of Pumapungo ("the puma's door"), a Cañari religious center. It is a fabulous outdoor museum and arboretum. There are also lots of other great museums and gorgeous churches in town (I keep calling it a town but it is a city about the size of Hartford CT or Grand Rapids, MI.). There are also ultra-modern shopping malls, indigenous markets, sports arenas, and cows grazing along the banks of the rivers...
Here's Robert at Pumapungo:
I guess that's enough for now--I've got lots more pictures and lots more news! So stay tuned!
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