South America, Days 74 to 81 - Stage 17: Cuenca, Ecuador

She complained I hadn't put many photos of the dogs on the last blog, so I'll start with one of Jackie getting full attention from all three while she eats a cake. They didn't get any (in case you're reading this Cheryl), but they certainly wanted some

Day 74-81 Sunday-Sunday

We really haven’t done much worth writing about, we’ve cooked, and eaten ‘normal’ food which is one of the joys of sitting, and having a kitchen. A washing machine being the other domestic simple pleasure. I’ve read 2.5 of Cheryl’s books and we’ve loved and fussed the dogs. This is all sounding like the last blog of the sit, which it isn’t, we don’t leave until a week on Tuesday, which in housesitting terms is a long time, but it’s going by so quickly.

Little Darla dog is the cutest and all she wants is to be close to Jackie. If she sits down, Darla wants to be picked up to sit on her lap and will moan until she's there. She can't get up on her own as her little legs are too short to leap up. Once there she's no trouble, she just lies there

We went on another little walk, to the hill opposite. Brian loves to be able to look around and say “been there, been there, been there” so it had to be done (see our Relive video with photos: click here). It is a strange looking hill as it appears to be completely flat on the top, so you really think it should be an airport. Indeed, it has the radar and at night very bright flashing lights for airplanes coming into Cuenca, just a little bit further west. It is however quite down and up to get there, so we ordered a taxi. After a little confusion about where we wanted to go we arrived at the (closed) restaurant Brian had navigated by. At this point we discovered that neither Brian, or the taxi driver had mobile coverage. This obviously presented us with the problem of how do we call to get back. He didn’t want to go away and come back, as we said we didn’t want to be much over an hour and a half, and it was a good 20 minutes to get there. He said he’d get the company to send someone else for us at 12.00, I think, and we were ok with this, however after a bit more Spanglish chat he said he would stay the hour and a half. He actually then took us quite a lot higher, to the edge of the plateau, without which we would never have achieved what we wanted to in an hour and a half, so definitely for the best. It was an easy walk as it was pretty much flat, but interesting non the less as we covered nearly 7km. He stopped for sugarcane juice on the way down, which made me feel much less guilty about asking him to stop for bread for our lunch. A good little outing despite there being something slightly galling about paying $20 to do a walk!

Took this one this morning. Asia dog lying across Darla, who doesn't seem to mind

Azamara cruises (who we're doing the Antarctic trip with) don’t really have formal nights (thank goodness, as I haven’t got any sparkly tops with me, unsurprisingly), but they do have a ‘white night’ which also unsurprisingly doesn’t feature highly in our luggage. We visited the second hand shop on the way out of the village that we passed on our canyon walk where I managed to pick up a white and black shirt for £5. Hurrah, just need to get similar for Brian, and if I can get a pair of trousers or a skirt, so much the better. If not, it’ll be black trousers!

The target of our next walk, that hill over there that looks relatively flat. If you zoom in you might see a radar on the top right and there's a couple of bright flashing lights we can see from the garden at night. Planes (of which there seem to be very few) come in from the right, go over the hill and land at Cuenca airport which is off on the left a few miles away. This is the highest point on their approach, hence the lights and radar. This photo is just up from the house we are staying in and when I see hills like that I just want to get up on the top, so I can look back later and say, 'been there'. Is it just me or do other people think the same?

There has also still been much planning. Brian has organised us a trip on the Falklands, assuming we manage to land. It is a tender port so if the weather is too much it is quite likely to get missed out. Azamara has loads of trips there, but none seemed to combine history with a penguin or two, and we wanted everything. He said it would be cheaper if it was for 4 so I posted on the cruise Facebook page and have found an English couple who were very interested. We’ve had a little chat and she sounds very nice, so that’s sorted. Strangely their cabin is directly opposite ours, what are the chances? And will it be too much of a good thing? At the moment, it’s all working well, I’ve managed to tell them exactly where the ship will dock and she has said she can bring out some seasickness pills for us if necessary. We like that sort of give and take.

We caught a taxi up, its about 8km from the house with a lot of ascent. He drove up the road you can see snaking up and parked at the little building on the right and waited while we walked. We walked a lot faster than normal (at 3000m) as we had a time pressure and we (I) wanted to do the whole plateau

We have also booked our return to the UK. I realised our last insured week was actually Easter week so booking things would be harder so we were going to fly home before that, only then I found another cruise, that actually goes from Rio, our last place, to Southampton. How good is that? Brilliant, except there were no cabins left for Rio to Southampton. There was however a cabin Buenos Aires (further south) to Rotterdam (further north). They’ve made the calls, we can get on late and off early, so that’s what we are doing. Does it make any sense? Not to me, but whatever, we’ll be back in the U.K. on April 25th.

It was pretty flat up there, just the odd hill, but the views were amazing

We’ve fitted in the Galapagos between here and the cruise round the southern tip. We’ve got a week in Buenos Aires when we disembark in a hotel that includes Argentine tango lessons. We’ve then got a trip to Easter island, which all means there is only about a month left. It’s all planned, in his head (and on a spreadsheet) so might as well get it booked. We are never this organised! Have a look at our updated map of our complete trip and a description by clicking the map on the right of this blog and a description of our complete trip above it (click the photo of Jackie standing in front of Machu Picchu above the map and it opens up a new page).

We must obviously be able to see the house we're staying in as we can see the hill, but pinpointing it was very difficult. I took loads of zoomed in photos thinking 'there it is' but actually didn't find it. This is one of those pictures, it's probably near to where we are staying, but it isn't in this!

Panorama from the top looking towards Cuenca in the far distance to the right

And there, zoomed in, is Cuenca airport, right in the middle of the city

Who's he? Well, I think its a Peruvian Meadowlark. He's obviously quite heavy, look how he's bent that branch!

This is the highest point of Pachamama hill, there's a cross, a wind turbine and a ruined building

At the cross (there's two there ha-ha!)

And by the wind turbine

Next stop was to get as close to the radar station as we could without getting into trouble. It's over there...

On the way we had to stop for a lizzard Jackie spotted in the grass. Can you see him, he's very well camoflaged 

There's the radar station over there. We walked through an open gate which didn't have any 'No Entry' notices on, but Jackie was getting twitchy. There's a car parked by the building on the left and then I started to wonder if its illegal to take photos of sensitive sites

There's one of the flashing light arrays there. We decided we'd pushed our luck as far as we could so beat a hasty retreat hoping no-one would come after us

A final detour to another viewpoint which Jackie didn't think we had time to get to

But we did, enjoyed the view and then headed back to the car, arriving 1 minute earlier than we said we would!

On the way back Jackie spotted a friend. There's always time to say hello

Always willing to try different things (and me being in charge of chopping up fruit for breakfast) we decided to try dragon fruit. Here it is

We bought a string of five of them (we'd had one by the time I took this photo) for 99 cents. Got to be worth a go at that price even if we don't like them

You cut them in half like I've done here and scoop out the flesh with a spoon. Other people had described it as tasting like a cross between a kiwi fruit and a pear, slightly sweet and we kind of agree with that. You eat the black seeds which you don't really notice, they aren't unpleasant

Here it is, scooped out (I got better at scooping as I went on and managed to get it our whole, chopping it into segments)

And there it is mixed with other fruits for our breakfast. We've got watermelon (also very cheap here), banana, apple and blueberries, what a great way to start the day!

I know this will be of no interest to most people, but the road up to the house has been closed all the while we've been here, resulting in a big detour for cars, but we can still walk along it as pedestrians. They are finally laying the concrete in four widths to make the full road and here they are doing the second strip. The pavements either side had been done previously. The man in the yellow jacket looking at me was asking if I'd like to help levelling the concrete. Everyone here is so friendly even if we struggle to understand, it's a lovely atmosphere

Eventually it'll look like this. I took this just as I started my run this morning. Yes, I've done another one, you can see it here. I acually managed 5km today and felt reasonable at the end of it. However, 35 minutes will not break any records, however at 2500m and with 140m of ascent it's not bad

So back to the house and sleeping doglets, a familiar sight. One final week and a bit of relaxation

South America, Days 66 to 73 - Stage 16: Cuenca, Ecuador

Can't even relax with a cup of tea on your own!

Day 66-67 Saturday-Sunday

I got the best out of the Christmas chicken, right up to boiling the carcass for soup, which though I say it myself was lovely. Whether the smell just makes you hungry and determined that it’s going to be I don’t know, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Soup felt like the right thing though, it’s not cold, but it really has been very wet so we’ve continued with planning, and jobs in the morning and reading in the hammocks in the afternoon, unless the noise of the rain on the tin roof just makes it unbearable!

Spotted this bird in the field opposite the house. Google Lens tells me its a Peruvian Meadowlark, there were quite a few hopping round early in the morning

Day 68 Monday

The morning forecast didn’t look too bad, and we were out of chicken meals, so a two pronged attack for the day. Brian wanted to walk up to a hill top with a cave that he’d seen the route to on his run (yes, he’s finally done one). An hour and a half got us to the top, this included a quick whizz round a shopping centre, just to see what was in there.

Our our cave walk. Its up there on that hill, by the lump on the right, but first we have to go right down and way to the left in order to turn right and go up. However, the good thing was that we didn't pass any snappy, loose dogs on this one

We had passed a sign with a map on telling us what we could expect to see, which didn’t look anything like what was there, but we continued to the stream. Crossing this was harder than it usually is I’m sure, due to all the rain, but we were intrigued by a sign on the other side explaining about the via ferrata lower off. What lower off and what via ferrata? We continued for a moment and came upon the recognisable metal staples in the rock forming a ladder down into the gorge. It wasn’t very far, but was very pretty, and most unexpected. There was no exploration to be done though, not without getting wet feet, but what a find. Mark, the homeowner sounded as interested in this walk as the last one we sent them pictures of, when he really wanted to know where the cliff was! See the walk on Relive with a few photos: click here

Past this very pretty tree on the road out towards the start of the hill. This has formed part of my running route, as of this morning I've done it twice, but at this altitude it's really hard!

Going down never takes as long as going up and we were back at the Cueva del Cangrejo in no time. This was my chosen lunch stop, a seafood restaurant, that gets good reviews, and why shouldn’t we? We ordered the sharing platter, she looked at us and said, something along the lines of “just 2 of you? Ha, no!” So we ordered the half, which was plenty and went down extremely well with a couple of beers. If I have a complaint it would be that the only choice was beer, there wasn’t a glass of dry white wine to be seen. Still a fab finish to the walk though.

Up the hill on the gravel road towards the uphill track. It is much steeper than it looks here

It then started to rain, really rain, so Brian decided we were going to get our first taxi home. We ran out to the first taxi that came in who grumpily told us that we had to phone the office, before stomping off, either to have lunch or use the loo, but he certainly wasn’t taking us anywhere. Fortunately the taxi that had been despatched for us then turned up and we hopped in, already wet. He didn’t seem to know about the road closure south of us which is quite a surprise, so by the time we’d been round the block and back up the long way the cost of the fare had gone from $2 to $2.50, but that’s ok.

However, the views are getting better. The mountains in the distance are the high Andes. We're staying in a house in amongst those on the far left. No idea which one from this photo

Day 69 Tuesday

We nipped out to get the last few bits for our New Year’s Eve tapas spectacular, knowing we had to be back for the gardener who was coming to cut the lawns. Just as we were leaving, the power went out, again. In itself not a problem, you always just want to know it’s not only you! As we got to the top of our road it was obvious what the problem was, the electricity pole was being changed, but why on NYE? Actually the power came back about 14.00 as the guy I’d asked as we passed suggested. Sadly however, by now the WiFi had gone, and that didn’t come back. Between us we walked up and down the road a number of times. There were different internet providers there, but never our one. Cheryl and Mark were driving to Tampa, not sure where from but this seemed to be a long journey during which contacting the provider was a real pain. She did, but was worried that they would try and call her Ecuador mobile to make arrangements, this wasn’t going to happen! We tried, as did they, calling and messaging Alex, their WiFi integrator, but nothing from him, apparently he’s usually tricky to get hold of when it’s not NYE. She suggested we ask Fernando, the next door neighbour, with a smattering of English, whose father owns this house if they had WiFi. They did, which he let us log into. This worked better for me, than for Brian. I could connect in certain areas of the house seemingly if I stood on one leg with my finger in my ear. Brian had to stand on the stairs with his phone pressed against the wall! Poor Fernando, had a man in and between them they were painting the house, so although he was very nice, he really didn’t want to get involved, and was probably cursing leaving the gate open so we could actually get in to speak to him. His son tried to help, listening to messages Cheryl had sent in Spanish and listening to us talk and type into Google translate, it was all very slow and frustrating, and we felt so helpless. Fernando eventually got to a place where he could stop painting and ring the provider, Cheryl had sent all the details through. They promised they would be there, today (it’s now 16.00 on NYE). I went back up the road, again, at 17.00, no one around at all, it’s not looking good. As I turned round to walk back Fernando with wife, and another son pulled up offering me a lift. Back at the house he called the provider again, giving them this son as a contact for the morning. New Year’s Day? Hmmm

Oh well, we’ll eat, drink and be merry, the tapas was fab. No WiFi meant no TV, but that’s ok, we’ll talk and nibble before heading off to bed at our usual time. Fast asleep when the fireworks started at 23.30, I spent midnight sitting in Asia’s bed with a shaking dog while Brian was upstairs watching the fireworks. The noise and bangs went on for a bit, fortunately it was pouring down which may have encouraged them to stop a little earlier than they would otherwise, and we all returned to bed to sleep.

Near the end of the gravel road before the track started there was a sign showing what we were looking for. Looks nice, lets carry on

Day 70 Wednesday

Messages from Cheryl asking if we had WiFi? As if. Alex has rung them too so that’s three notifications they’ve had now.

We didn’t want to bother Fernando, but got a message at 10.30 saying they would be out this morning. Hurrah, till 12.00 when we got another message from him that they weren’t coming till tomorrow between 8 and 9. Oh well, we’ll go out then, as it’s finally stopped raining (is that why they couldn’t get any engineers on NYD?) We were hoping for a bakery which we found, for some rolls for bacon and egg, and also found the icecream shop, so we’ll have milkshake and WiFi then!

Higher up it becomes quite rugged, mainly bare limestone with occasional trees and vegetation

Back to a call from Alex, that he couldn’t be with us in the morning, but could be available on the phone. Do we need him? Well it’s not an option, will they need to come in? Who knows, we are on fibre not copper, so it’s a possibility.

A chilled afternoon and tapas mark II. We didn’t have to talk to each other again though, I went through the folder of DVD’s!

Getting closer now, the dotted line on my Organic Map downloaded on my phone suggests its up on the right by that upper hill

Day 71 Thursday

09.00 and a van with two men in arrive, they do want to come into the house, and are a bit unsure about the dogs, they are fine though running around like nutters. The guys have a quick look and say they’ll be back, with the fibre, from the new pole, in about 40 minutes.

We leave the path where the dotted line on the map indicated its over here somewhere

We’ll finish our breakfast then, bugger, Suki has had a look and not only had a little lick of the yogurt on Brian’s fruit, but has also taken the stones from the small plums that we’d left on a plate. Just what we need. It’s not the stones so much as they are small, so shouldn’t cause a blockage, but the fact that like many fruit stones they contain a small amount of cyanide. After consultation with Cheryl and Mark we agreed to a watch and wait, and poo inspection regime. I boiled up some rice, with a little bit of chicken, added some olive oil and gave small regular doses of this. I went through all the poo in the garden and actually found one stone that literally must have gone straight through. One more to go then. There has been no sign of this one, but also no sign of any blockage, things are moving just as normal, but what a way to spend a day and a half, just as well there are lots of plastic gloves!

The engineers finally got back so I went into the bedroom with the dogs while the work went on upstairs. Alex, good as gold, was available on the phone, and the work was completed. The engineers seemed to think the repeaters had forgotten everything, but I confirmed that we had upstairs and downstairs WiFi and that the TV has Prime and Netflix, so all seems to be good. Hurrah, we’ve still got lots of planning to do, not to mention, booking flights, paying house insurance and income tax and all sorts of other things that require the connectivity we all just take for granted.

Stew in the Instant pot for dinner, can’t believe how quick and easy it is, and how yummy it turned out. It’s not scary like pressure cookers used to be, but have I really got a need for one? I’ll think about it.

We walk to an edge and there's the cave a long way down. Don't go too close! We're not crossing there

Day 72 Friday

More rain, though we fortunately managed to make our shopping trip between showers.

More planning, more poo study, more blogging, though it’s not going to get posted till tomorrow as it’s about drink and nibbles time. I am however happy to report that Suki has shown absolutely no ill effects in any way. Phew.

A little way up stream there looks to be a possible crossing place. We can see others have been this way, so we'll give it a go

Day 73 Saturday

Just a quick update, despite many other ‘movements’ I went through one this morning containing three intact (1 more than expected) plum stones. Interesting that they have taken 36 hours to make it through though.

On the opposite bank is a sign indicating a lower off and via ferrata. We have no gear with us, but lets go and have a look...

We're here. There's a gash in the ground on the right, in front you can just see some slings on fixed lower off's and, just by those two twiggy trees in the lower centre, some staples leading down

Mmm, looks interesting. We can do that without ropes surely. Jackie doesn't object so down I go

This section is vertical and the water below is gushing through after recent rain, so exploration down there without getting wet is out of the question

I get down and stand on a rock, there's just about enough room for Jackie, but we can go no further

What a situation. We would imagine that in the dry season you could walk all along here, but those pools are deep with rushing water

Posing for a photo but not letting go of the bottom staple. Its wet down here with water dripping of the cave edges onto us

Jackie stood over there but I didn't take another photo as I didn't want to get my camera out again, it was wet and I was holding on with one hand

Back up there then. What could possibly go wrong!

Looking down the gash as we crossed back again

Jackie seems to have got back over safely

On our way back down

We pass this chicken farm where the hens have their own parasols!

We take a shortcut back, another dotted line shown on my map. I trod carefully on the bridge to make sure it would take my weight!

Our reward after getting down. Fried seafood platter and beers at the Cueva del Cangrejo seafood restaurant. It was fabulous and we made a note that we must go here again before we leave

Doglets missed us while we were gone, but they were fine

However they weren't so happy with fireworks and Asia dog retreats to her safe place in her bed under the stairs with Jackie to console her

New Years Eve and that's why we have no power. The electricity board decide to erect a new pole. Their only concern is to reconnect the electric. Unfortunately all internet providers use the poles to run their cables, but the electric board are not concerned about those, they just cut them all, leaving everyone with no internet. Each internet provider has to come out and run new cables. There's all our cables lying on the ground

On our way back from the shops and there'll still be no electric yet, but the are working on it. Unbelievably the internet was still working at this stage through those cables dangling down. However they later just cut them all as they reconnected the electric and we were plunged into silence, but at least we had electric! Why on NYE?

Our New Years Eve buffet went ahead and we had a nice selection of goodies. Doglets showed some interest too but we managed to keep them at bay

Saw these in the shop. We know them in the UK as Frosties, but Zucaritas is a much better name!

We've had some heavy rain here, usually in the afternoon and evening 
, but sometimes in the morning too. They've had a big drought here this year apparently, but that's definitely changed now and, we understand this is particularly wet just now. Rivers have flooded and some roads have been washed away. We're halfway through our housesit now, our forward trip planning is going very well and its all looking very exciting, starting on 22nd January. Lets enjoy the remaining relaxation!