Author Archive: Erin

Grocery shopping in Cuenca is a bit different than in the U.S.  There are a few grocery stores here that look just like a typical grocery store in the U.S. but for the most part, the grocery stores in the city center are small and have a large selection of dry goods and then smaller (or non-existent) sections of refrigerated goods, fruits, and veggies.  The place to go to buy your fruit, vegetables and meat is one of the “open air” markets.  There are a two that are within walking distance of our apartment, but one that we like more than the other.

The inside is very clean and open and it is organized by levels.  Fruit and veggies on the main floor, meat downstairs and prepared food booths upstairs.

The juices here are awesome and made fresh right before your eyes.  A glass (and not a small one) of fresh juice will run you $.50 – $1.

On the fruit and veggie floor, we usually go from booth to booth asking prices and checking out which produce looks good.  There are different varieties of produce than we have in the U.S. and quite a few different fruits that they only use for juicing.

Here’s a blurry shot of me negotiating, which is definitely part of the shopping experience.

Because the markets are so close to us, we usually end up going 2-3 times a week to pick up exactly what we need for cooking and snacking.  Here’s an example of a grocery haul from a few days ago.

We paid a total of $5.25 this time.  Here’s the breakdown:

• 1 pineapple for $1
• 10 bananas for $.50
• 3 green plantains for $.50
• a bag of onions ~10 for $.50
• a bag of green peppers ~7 for $.50
• a bag of hot peppers ~10 for $.50
• a bag of limes ~12 for $.50
• a bag of tomatoes ~5 for $.50
• a bunch of green onions for $.25
• a bunch of cilantro for $.25
• a bag of garlic ~12 peeled cloves for $.25

Most of the produce stands sell bags of produce for $.50 to $1.  A lot of the vegetables are $.50/bag and the fruit $1/bag but it just depends on what is in season and who is giving you the price.  We probably are getting “gringo prices” on some of the stuff, but we honestly don’t mind because it still seems pretty cheap to us!

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in Ecuador for almost a month now!  So what have we been doing in Cuenca? Whatever we feel like! The best part of fun-employment is only doing things that you want to, which honestly, has been a lot of relaxing so far.

We’ve been taking Spanish classes in the mornings for the last 3 weeks.  Here’s a shot of Brandon with his teacher Rafael and one of me with my teacher Belen.

I’m really glad that we decided to take Spanish classes, although it’s a little weird having homework again!  Both Brandon and I improved a lot over the last few weeks and it’s been great learning more about the history and culture of Ecuador.  And it’s also been great for restaurant recommendations!

Most days I either workout before or after class.  I’ve either been doing body weight excercises or yoga in the apartment or running/walking in Parque de la Madre.  The park is so nice!  There are always a few people working out there running on the track or using some of the stationary equipment.

Besides Parque de la Madre, Cuenca has a ton of other parks that museums that we’ve checked out.  There is also a great bike path next to one of the rivers that runs through town that we walk on most days.

We (and by we, I mean mostly Brandon 🙂 ) have also spent a lot of time over the last month watching the World Cup.  This is really the first time I’ve ever watched much soccer and while I am enjoying it, I like it a lot more now that there is only 1 game every few days instead of 3 games everyday!  There have been a few rainy afternoons here that have been perfect for watching soccer or Netflix.  I *might* have already blazed through season 1 of Nashville and be well underway with the first season of Homeland…

All of our free time has been great for catching up on reading and wish lists.  Brandon is working on project that he’s wanted to do for a while and I decided to learn some basic coding and am working my way through some Codecademy tutorials.  I also volunteered at a local nursing home a few afternoons.  We’ve also been spending a bit of time doing research for our next adventure since we leave Cuenca in a week!  We still have a few more things we want to do while we are in Cuenca and are planning on getting them crossed off the bucket list next week when my sister Jennifer visits us.  Towards the top of the list is heading back to a little Belgium brewery that we found.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Last weekend, Brandon and I took a city bus to the edge of town (only $0.25 to ride!) to spend a few hours at a thermal pool spa.  The area, called Banos (although not to be confused with another, much larger city called Banos in the center of the country), was a bit more rural but beautiful with the Andes as a backdrop.

The spa we went to was called Piedra de Agua

It had several packages to choose from with massages, mud wraps, steam boxes, etc, but Brandon and I just wanted to soak in the pools.  We tried out two different pools and the turkish steam baths while we were there and it was a really relaxing day!

Each of the pools had a large “warm” pool and apparently for maximum benefit, you were supposed to alternate between the warm pool and going into smaller “hot” and “cool” pools for a few minutes.  The hot pools were really nice but the cool pools were COLD!  I lasted 10 seconds in the cold water before diving into the hot pool to warm up and Brandon was in and out of the cold water even quicker!

Before heading back into Cuenca, we hung out on the terrace at the spa drinking smoothies, playing cards, and enjoying the nice day.

I can’t believe that we’ve been in Cuenca for a week already – the days have been flying by!  Cuenca is a cool little city (the 3rd largest in Ecuador) with a population around 500,000.  It is in the middle of the Andes mountains so it is awesome just looking around and always seeing mountains in the distance.

The city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is full of really cool buildings, cobblestone streets and churches.  Apparently there are 52 churches in Cuenca so you could visit a different one every Sunday for a year.  Here are a few, including the largest – the New Cathedral (blue domes).

The city looks unlike any other that I’ve been to in South America.  Brandon says it looks European (I’ll have to take his word since I still haven’t been to Europe!)

In the center of the historic area is Parque Calderon.

This week in Cuenca was a festival called Corpus Christi.  The streets around Parque Calderon were lined with tents filled with dulces (candies, pastries, cookies).

Every night in the park, they set off fireworks and would light between 1 and 3 castillos.  You can see a castillo in the picture below – it is pretty much a little tower covered with fireworks.  There are 4 tiers to it (they light one after the other) and for the grand finale, fireworks shoot out of the top.  We walked over to the park a couple different nights to see the castillos – and eat some dulces of course.

This weekend we’re planning on doing a little more exploring and heading out to the city limits to an area called Banos where there are spas with thermal pools.