Dave Hippler

We took the direct van from Vilcabamba to Cuenca in the morning and arrived right after 1 pm. It was full of mostly retired Americans and Canadians. Peter was one of the Canadians sitting near me and mentioned he was renting an apartment in Cuenca for the winter.

After we arrived, we ate a quick lunch, and took a cab to the nearby town of Banos and tried a new spa. This one was a little more upscale, and by that I mean it cost $16 but included a robe, towel, free tea, and nicer facilities than the place we've visited next door. In the contrasto pool we met a Belgian guy. Contrasto is a room with a very hot pool next to a very cold one. Switching back and forth is a great feeling. I call it a free buzz.

While talking to Gregory, I asked him if he knew Francoise, our Belgian friend in town who's partners with Nathan and whom we had a drink with a month earlier. He said "She's my mom." As if that isn't a small enough world, he mentioned that he's a landlord in town and I said "Do you know a Canadian guy named Peter?" and he said, "Yeah, I'm renting to him right now." Crazy. This is a town of about 500,000 but the gringo network seems pretty tight.

Gregory gave us a ride back to town, which was quite gracious. He mentioned that Yaku Mama was having an open mic tonight, since it's a Wednesday. We walked over there later (it was only 2 doors down from our hotel) and grabbed a table for dinner. As we were starting to sit down, there was Peter from the van, and his wife Sharon. We joined them and mentioned the whole dealio with Gregory and shared a laugh.

Peter's a pretty good blues guitarist and took his turn on the stage. He was pretty impressive, considering he started at age 50. We saw about 8 acts. Each got about 10 - 15 minutes and most were great, playing a variety of music. There was a family act of parents singing and on guitar and a teenage daughter playing beatbox, a local rock duo, and a weird American guy playing songs on just a bass, but at least he convinced the beatbox girl to join in. But the big surprise of the night was a woman who had dinner alone near our table. When it was her turn, she tuned up briefly with an acoustic guitar and proceeded to blow everybody away. Her song started as a Spanish Flamenco style and she had this amazing voice. Then she changed to an Operatic style of singing and at the end of one song she pursed her lips and made it sound like she was playing the trumpet. It's hard to explain, but was a fantastic display of talent. After she was done, about half of the audience went up to her and asked for her name or just to tell her how amazing she was. Rumor has it she was from France, but living in San Francisco.

The next day was just a time-killing day for us. Our flight to Quito was scheduled at 6, so we walked around town and at the 10 de Agusto market, we ran into a German woman named Claudia we met at the open mic. She had lived in many cities in the US. lived briefly in Vilcabamba (hated it) and lived in Cuenca now. She played the harmonica and had sat in with Peter and a few others. We invited her to lunch at Tiesto's, our favorite restaurant in Ecuador, but she was a no-show. The meal there was amazing as always. I suppose we should order something other than their signature dish, Langostinos Tiesto, but for an inexpensive feast of delicious seafood swimming in butter with about 10 salsas is hard to pass up.

After more walking around, we spotted Peter and Sharon drinking coffee at a cafe and laughed at the coincidence and chatted a bit. When I told Peter that Claudia was a no-show, he said "Musicians. What are you gonna do?" Granted that we pretty only much hang out in the historic center of town, as many gringos do, but we were still surprised at how small-town homey Cuenca felt to us, even though there is a hustle and bustle vibe here. In Ecuador, everyone is out and about and walking around. A city of 20,000 here seems much larger than a city of 200,000 in the states because of that.

Given the vibe we got on this short trip to Cuenca, I emailed Nate and Francoise to get Gregory's contact info. He rents for $350-$550/month and we just might try out Cuenca for a bit longer next time. We've never liked the weather here as much as many others. It's not horrible, but you never know if it's going to rain or not. The good news is that after a cool rain, it might get hot and sunny right away. So weather isn't a real reason to not give Cuenca a real try.

Back at the room, I saw 2 texts in a row that our 6 pm flight on Latam is delayed, and then cancelled. Crap! We're flying from Quito at 1:30 am on a different airline and this is all happening a few hours from the scheduled flight. While I'm starting to panic and search for another flight, they sent another text saying we're booked on the 10 pm flight to Quito. It's only an hour flight and it's plenty of time for the later flight to Quito. Whew.

I paid the front desk at our hotel $15 more to keep the room until 8 pm. That's half of the room rate for a basic room in the historic center. That worked out great since we were planning on spending several hours at the Quito airport. It all worked out, as usual, and 4 flights later we landed in Madison at about noon. It's the end of another great trip. No wonder we can't wait for our next adventure.Read more