South America, Days 82 to 91 - Stage 18: Cuenca, Ecuador

On top of the last hill surrounding our housesit

Day 82-91 Monday-Wednesday

More of the same really, cooking, eating, chilling, planning and cuddling dogs. As I’m writing we are in that strange limbo of waiting for Cheryl and the family to get home, so we’ve packed, cleaned and don’t want to touch anything. The dogs know something is going on, there were suitcases, and they were shut out as we cleaned the floor, how very dare we?

Our last walk was to another high point, what a surprise! See the walk with photos here. Not far though, but to complete the set around the house really. From none of the walks however do we think we’ve actually been able to see the house, though we’ve pinpointed where it should be finally! Even though we were gone no longer than a trip to the icecream shop for a milkshake and a trip to the supermarket (what an exciting life we lead), the girls knew we’d been somewhere different and welcomed us home even more uproariously than usual. Perhaps because we sneaked up on them, not coming down the road so they didn’t get the early warning woofs so they weren’t barking till we opened the gate!

View from El Mueble observation deck, with fine views over to Cuenca on the left and the town of Capulispamba. The water you can see on the left is the relatively new sewage treatment works which, apparently has had a dramatic effect on cleaning up the local rivers, making them the cleanest in Ecuador

We went into Cuenca on Monday to do a bit of shopping, new flip flops for me, new sunglasses for Brian and a shirt for cruising. I expected the latter to be really difficult but amazingly we did find a nice dress shirt in one of the funny second hand shops that he was happy with. But it needs cufflinks he said, so $5 for the shirt and 35 cents for four buttons and a reel of thread and I’ve made him some cufflinks. Trousers and skirts seemed difficult though, so I’ve got no white skirt or trousers for Azamara cruises white night, so it’ll be black stretchy Craghoppers, though I don’t think I’ll be the only one. There seem to be a lot of people flying from Australia for this cruise, also struggling with the thermals to bikini clothing requirements! At least I won’t be the only one with only one dress! Other things we’ve had to buy ibuprofen and seasickness pills. If anyone can explain to me why in Ecuador one ibuprofen pill is 23 cents, as opposed to 46p for 16 in Aldi in the U.K., yet one Dramamine pill is 6 cents, as opposed to £1.79 in the U.K. where you can order it from Amazon, but not actually buy it over the counter! All very odd.

It was there so we had to use it for a photo

Having walked the length of Cuenca we arrived at the Indian restaurant we didn’t go to last time and had a great meal. Really enjoyed it, AND, it’s only a 10 minute walk from the hotel we are staying in tonight. I had originally said we’d stay at the house tonight, but the hotel allowed cancellation up until today so we could have cancelled if there had been any travel problems, which fortunately wasn’t necessary. Only once, early on in our Housesits have we planned to leave before knowing the homeowners would make it home, and they didn’t! We couldn’t stay as we had somewhere else to go, and we had mother with us, and they had no spare room anyway. I’ve said I’m never having that stress again!

From the rock on the top we think we can see the location of the house (but its not visible as its in a slight dip) See the red arrow (I should have made it a bit bigger - look closer). On the left is the Pan America highway, the longest road on earth. If you start in Alaska it runs down through west Canada, all down the west coast of the USA, through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, across the Darien Gap (you'll have to take a boat for that short bit) into South America, Colombia, Ecuador, along this bit, Peru, Chile and Argentina. 19,000 miles in all. What a challenge! If you plan to do let me know, I'll join you!

Had a different stress instead, a message from my Santander App, asking if I was trying to make a payment? No, I’ve only used my card at the ATM, so reject the payment, but guess I’d better try to speak to them. (Skype is still serving us well for this, except that people can’t ring back so it can be a real pain when someone in a big company has to check on something, you never get to speak to them again !)

Excuse my indulgence but this is a panorama from the same location, showing all the hills we've done. We're obviously standing on the fourth but the arrow on the right is the first hill we did, near the middle is another arrow showing the second hill with the cave and, on the left, two arrows with a line between showing the third, that we've called radar hill as its the one with the radar on the end. If you zoom in to the right arrow you should be able to just see it. How satisfying for me to be able to look out from the house and know that we've been on the top of all the hills we can see!

Normal response would be to cancel the card and have a new one sent out. That’s obviously a no. He did say that on the App I can freeze the card, and unfreeze it and refreeze it. Guess that’s what I’ll have to do then, slightly inconvenient as I’ll have to find WiFi when out, but much better than the alternative!

We came back a different way creeping down through the trees to surprise all three doglets

The family arrived back just after I finished my call which was very convenient. We had a lovely time catching up before we finally had to say goodbye to the girls and get a taxi into Cuenca. A much nicer hotel and better positioned than last time, so we’ll pop into the microbrewery for a pint (or pint and a half actually, it was 3 for 2 in happy hour, and like a star she was happy to split the third pint into 2 halves so we both got what we were drinking) before the second best Thai restaurant. Well it was raining and it was 7 minutes not 30 minutes walk!

They wennt nuts when they saw us, but it didn't last long, they were soon chilled out again

I didn’t know whether I was going to sleep really well or really badly, without the dogs. Turns out it was really badly, though I blame the beer. So just waiting for the second hand bookshop to open and we’ll go out and start our last real day in Ecuador. Tomorrow we are being collected at 05.30 to go to Guayaquil to fly to the Galapagos, which I know technically is still Ecuador, but it’s a flight and a lifestyle away. We've thoroughly enjoyed our time since arriving in Quito, but mostly we enjoyed the dogs.

Having a little practice with my GoPro (equivalent) camera ready for getting underwater photos while snorkeling in the Galapagos next week. Darla thought it was very interesting and had to give it a good sniffing 

And then it rained - really rained, flooding the garden and turning the road into a river. It kept up for at least half and hour with a ferocious thunderstorm. Fortunately no water came in but Asia and Suki were shivering wrecks under the stairs 

Now here's 5 weeks of work. I took this photo on 24th December of the road construction just round the corner from us

Same road 5 weeks later on 19th January. It's not quite finished, but haven't they done well!

A typical scene on the bed, sharing with three doglets

And a very comfy Darla

We said a fond farewell to them all and headed to Cuenca, staying for a couple of nights at the Flore Hotel in the centre. Tomorrow we are up very early, being collected at 5:30am for the 3.5 hour drive to Guayaquil where our adventure continues, a flight to the Galapagos islands for our six day luxury catamaran tour of the islands with island hiking, snorkeling and kayaking!