On a Carol tip, this event celebrates the integration of foreign ex-pats into the Ecuadorian community.
In a city leaning towards five hundred thousand there are estimates that twenty thousand Americans have relocated to Cuenca, not that many for Ecuadorians to be worried about. This event also celebrates foreign investment, transportation projects,and large business developments involving overseas partnerships.
The festivities take several hours to set up, several hours to accomplish, and several hours to break down. When the speeches are over there is food served. In Ecuador, pork is popular. and, this afternoon, chickens and cattle drink at the same bar and toast the pig for taking their sword.
Ex- pats bring money, know how, ideas to Cuenca but Ex-pats don’t always blend with Ecuadorian culture, language, or politics.
Americans must bend to meet Ecuadorians, but Ecuadorians know change is inescapable.
Their children have cell phones, surf the net, and live in a world turning into what their parents dread.
People and ideas have always migrated around our planet.
Smart countries are always concerned about the quality and quantity of those who cross their borders.
If you like strolling empty sidewalks with little traffic, and only a few walkers, seven in the morning is good in Cuenca, Ecuador.
It is a downhill jaunt from the end of Munoz Luis Cordero to the Parque Calderone. There are many General streets in this district but I remember Luis Cordero because at one end is Calle Munoz Vernaza, 3-46, where I reside for December 2015.
The Dorado panaderia I like to visit each morning is operated by the nearby El Dorado hotel and offers upscale breads and pastries, coffee and sandwiches. It has an upstairs where you eat or visit with friends and business associates, a clean bano on the bottom floor, modern decor, well presented baked goods.
One of the first things people ask me here is, ” Do you live here?, and, ” Do you like our city? ”
My standard answer is – “I don’t live here but I love your city.”
Even though Cuenca isn’t as big as Montevideo, it has a quarter million people nestled in between high Andes mountain ranges. It doesn’t spring from the indigenous jungle people like Costa Rica or Belize, or the cattle people of Uruguay, but from small, short stature, reserved people who live quietly in the high Andes and spend time growing crops on land that isn’t hospitable to farmers.
Cuenca is a city with a Spanish history rather than British, Catholic rather than Protestant. Ecuador shares more in common with Peru than Uruguay and more with Costa Rica than Belize.
If countries are determined by the traits of their indigenous peoples, Ecuador, and, by extension Cuenca, should reflect the mountain people of the Andes and it seems, to me, that this is true.
Geography does more to determine a countries character than all the books written about it.
Ecuador is now my fifth travel ring.
This morning Jose scampers up a coconut tree on the Island Academy grounds and separates coconuts from their necks.
They fall with a thud to the sand where he collects them, uses his machete to scalp them, then pours coconut water into plastic jugs that he sells for a couple of bucks a gallon. Under the authority of the Queen of England, the beaches, whatever washes up on the beaches, and whatever grows on them is fair game for the public. All he has to do is climb and get them. A competitor uses a twenty foot extension ladder to harvest nature’s crop but Jose climbs the old fashioned way.
When Jose climbs for his prize, he digs his feet into the coconut tree trunk and bows his legs. Then he extends his arms, holds on to the trunk, and pulls his legs up to his waist where he clamps them on the trunk again, extends his arms and hands, and repeats the process. His machete hangs on a rope tied to his belt loop. When he gets to the top of the tree he quickly cuts coconuts from their bunch with his machete.
He climbs down in reverse order, and, when he touches sand, he collects his coconuts and throws them over the fence onto the beach.
Business is brisk and a tourist from Ramon’s Village passes me with two gallon jugs, one in each hand. Coconut water is a health food favorite and reputed as some of the purest water on the planet.
Jose’s best scheme would be to train a monkey to do his job with a little knife in its mouth and a pirate bandana around his head.
All monkey’s should have to work for their coconuts.
The papusa is an El Salvadorean snack.
It is a grilled soft tortilla, much like a pancake, stuffed with chicken, pork, cheese, beef, and condiments. They are $1.25 U.S. at this El Salvadorean restaurant in downtown San Pedro Town.
Night in San Pedro Town has a different look than day. There are bright lights, new characters, corners look less defined, worn facades are obliterated by dark.
If you are on vacation, and want to indulge, you go to Elvie’s Kitchen for fantastic local food. If you want to budget, you check out little stands, small family restaurants, and street carts.
El Savador has established a foothold here, along with Guatamalan’s selling woven products on the beach. Nicaraguan’s work with concrete and construction. European’s do banking. Belize natives fish, work for the government, or live off tourism. Everyplace you go in the world, except Japan and China, people’s from different countries establish beach heads in your community and thrive.
Tonight is cool and pleasant, a welcome respite from the day’s sun.
Parked out front of the restaurant, golf carts wait for customer’s getaways, driving home under a moonlit night sky, stopping for all the red lights as tides roll in.
Seeing night in a new place, as well as day, gives us travelers the full picture of the places we find ourselves.
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When I travel light I look for a laundry first thing.
Down the street, from Chez Caribe, is my dirty clothes salvation.
Kenny owns and operates the J and J Laundry and works long hours- six days a week. You take your clothes, drop them off ,and Kenny, or one of his staff, wash, dry, put them in a plastic bag, and have them ready when you return to pick them up later in your vacation day. As soon as one machine empties, it is filled with more clothes to be cleaned, not quickly, but eventually. Island time is slower than watch time.
Kenny has been up and running for a year and bought the business from a previous owner who was tired of doing dirty socks. Along with the laundry business came Karaoke equipment. This means Kenny takes care of your dirty clothes and the island’s dirty singing.
This morning I pick up my clean clothes and go home feeling better about the world.
Belize is almost behind me and Ecuador is peeking its head around the bend in time’s river, moving its right forefinger and inviting me to visit and sit a spell.
My stay here has been wonderful. I am well suited for island life where there is no zoning and a million dollar beachfront home shares the same vista with a drunk fisherman sleeping under a rowboat.
Doing laundry is hardly newsworthy, but skip it and things start to smell bad.
There is always plenty to write about when you drop your standards and accept life as it comes to you.
Alcoholics can’t walk by a bar without going in. Ministers can’t hear church bells without reaching for their Sermon. Firemen change clothes at the smell of smoke. Construction workers can’t avoid a construction zone.
This has been a year of house rehabilitation so it was impossible for me not to grab a paint brush and lend a hand.
The Legends Bar and Grill renovation, on the north side, is in progress. Opening day is December 1, 2015. Painting is the same down here as up north. You keep your eye on the edge, cut a straight line, don’t let paint drip, keep the brush moving, clean up if you make a mess.
The big push today is to prime wood trim upstairs in the bar, install galvanized metal sheets on the kitchen ceiling, and move a huge defunct cooler out of the kitchen, through two doorways, and onto the front porch where it will be picked up later and used in some way by the group of seven men who move it out.
When the group of men arrive there is much measuring, grunting, re- positioning, and evaluating. A few times the task looks impossible but if someone got it into the bar it can be taken out.
Jack’s sign is posted in the kitchen, beside a good cooler, and reminds him on a hot day, with both fans blowing and orders buzzing around his head like angry mosquitoes, that a craftsman is never far from his philosophy.
There are as many tour companies in San Pedro Town as there are bars, restaurants, or lodgings.
The day tour from San Pedro Town to the Mayan ruins at Lamanai on the Belize mainland, including drinks, transport , food, a guide and park fee is $150.00 U.S . We are gone an entire day, from 7 in the morning till six in the evening and see Belize by boat, foot and bus.
Our trip starts as a tour boat picks up guests at the end of piers where they are staying. There are twenty of us,this trip, young and old. The boat captain is Erin and our guide is Gustavo.
On the way to the mainland we get educated about mangroves, weather, ecosystems, navigating sand bars, pirates, and answers to any questions we ask.
As often is the case, guests are not asking questions but Gustavo tells us history and habits of those who live here. He makes himself available but not obnoxious. A good guide opens the book and points you to good parts, explains, but doesn’t read the words to you.
Even though this is a Sea-Rious tour we all go home, at the end of the day, smarter than we started and with smiles on our faces.
According to Rabbit, retired bartender, Ramon’s Village is one of the better values in San Pedro Town. If you are coming to Ambergris Caye for a week and want to have convenience, service, good food, security, access to the water, a good home base for your explorations, nice accommodations, for a good price, Ramon’s is the place for you.
The resort burnt down several years ago and was rebuilt with work going twenty four seven. Ramon didn’t want to re- open but did anyway. His resort has an international flavor, and, unlike many lodgings on the island, is maintained by a full staff of worker bees.
Ramon’s is maybe not the best way to get to know the island, close up and personal, but lots of people visit San Pedro Town with no desire to move here and want the island to be accompaniment to their vacation instead of the melody.
Even Ramon himself, greeting breakfast diners, asks me this morning how I am doing?
I compliment his hotel and listen attentively..
Maintaining and managing a profitable business anywhere is worthy of respect.
This church rents a shut down movie theater on Sundays for two services -8 :30 and 10:00 am. The mother church is in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Sagebrush, I have been told by an Albuquerque friend who is a member, is on Albuquerque’s west side and has locations in other New Mexico cities.
Sagebrush Belize is raising money in San Pedro Town to build a new facility, over the bridge, in sight of this movie theater, right where a wood sign now sticks in a sand lot.
There are questions raised by church members about spending a million dollars on a building but the official answer is that it is expensive to rent and the church needs room to grow. What began as a Bible study in an upstairs room has become more.
Belize has pressing needs. Churches serve more quickly, economically, and responsibly than government.
Having a million dollar temple is not going to get you closer to Jesus, but it isn’t going to hurt recruiting.
The resort and casino are on the north side of Ambergris Caye and you get there in a taxi by the new road, or a water taxi with Coastal Express, or catch one of the resort’s own shuttles that bring guests to and from their accommodations.
This time of year the resort is not bustling. Saturday’s guests are off doing tours or sleeping from too much sun, too much party, too much jet lag, too much culture shock.
Captain Morgan was, by most accounts, successful. He was a privateer rather than a pirate. He was authorized by the Queen to steal Spanish gold, sink Spanish ships, kill Spanish seaman and citizens. Pirates steal from everyone, have no allegiances, and are enemies of the state.
Captain Morgan was a clever fighting man and retired in Jamaica where he amassed land, riches, and died in his own bed. There is a rum named after him and on the walls of this resorts guest houses are wood planks with names of fellow privateers that prowled the Caribbean.
Captain Morgan’s spirit is still lurking in these islands and who knows when he will swoop in to the casino, draw his broadsword, load guest valuables into his large brimmed hat and finish a bottle of spiced rum before disappearing into the seas on a full moon night with the prettiest girl under his arm.
The biggest news is the casino doesn’t open till six in the evening.
If he had it to do over, Captain Morgan would run a casino instead of pirating
With gambling you don’t kill your customers.
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