The Inaugural Blog

Cor and I left for Ecuador on September 24th, 2007. Our passports being held hostage for an agonizing 10 business days for our Visa application at the Ecuadorian consulate in Toronto, we had to make a stop there mere hours before our flight. I can´t say we were relaxed at this point. However, once we had our passports and Visas in hand, things felt a bit less hairy. Our flights went without any major delays, turbulence, or terrorist attacks (maybe I shouldn´t joke about that), and we arrived in coastal Guayaquil, Ecuador just past midnight. The cab ride from the airport to our hostel was a nasty shock to the Spanish part of my confidence. Over the course of the summer, my Spanish had gotten rustier that a badly maintained ´89 Toyota Tercel left out in the rain.

Opting to get to Cuenca ASAP, we didn´t see much of Guayaquil, and basically just slept there. The next morning, we took a mini bus from the port city to Cuenca, with a gaggle of very friendly Ecuadorians who alternated between trying to get us to agree to live with their various families upon our arrival, and getting us to put on more and more clothing as we climbed to higher altitude to Cuenca (roughly 7000 ft) where they assured us it would be much colder than muggy Guayaquil. It was kind of like riding in the company of a busload of grandmas.

We stayed at a place called Hostal Macondo for the next couple of nights in Cuenca while we tried to find an apartment. That part was ridiculously demoralizing at first. So many places we saw at first can be described as nothing other than ¨brokedown palaces¨; places that were likely stunning in their prime, but had long since lost their Colonial glory and surrendered to decay. A lot of apartments looked as if the proverbial wolf would have no problem huffing and puffing and blowing the dams things down. We finally found a great place with two other teachers, Jake and Drea, a newlywed couple from the midwest of the US. It´s in a fantastic apartment complex just outside of the nucleus of the city, so it´s a bit less polluted and busy, and it´s right on the beautiful río (river) Tomebamba!


Cor and I share a room and sleep in bunkbeds. I snagged the top one...just when I thought I was becoming an adult, I regress to climbing a ladder up to my single bed every night...



The other teachers here are truly fantastic, and although the school is a bit disorganized, I am finally getting the hang of lesson planning and teaching (which I love). I teach one beginner children´s class and two intermediate young adult´s class every day from Monday to Thursday. I can´t knock a three day weekend!

Life in Cuenca is very sweet. The city itself is stunning in terms of architecture and colourful in terms of people. The majority of the population is comprised of modern Ecuadorians, but about 30% are made up of Indigenous people who come into the city every day to sell fruits, vegetables, hats, jewelry, and very strange desserts. There are amazing markets tucked in all over the city where you can do all of your weekly grocery shopping for about $10, and in every one of those markets, you have the opportunity to purchase some cuy, a traditional Cuencaño delicacy. What is cuy, you ask? Well, remember that hamster I had in grade five? It´s basically that, but bigger. Cuy is guinea pig. Being the sensitive vegetarian who still misses her hamster Lucky, I doubt I will be trying any of this specialty meat.

Other than that, I am so happy here. During my time in Ecuador, I have only really felt two emotions: complete euphoria and needing to go pee, and the latter is only because unlike in Canada, in Ecuador it is a huge effort to find a decent public washroom. For someone who drinks a lot of tea, this is my biggest life challenge here. Basically, you have to follow the ¨two out of three ain´t bad¨rule. The three being: 1) has toilet paper, 2) has a toilet seat, and 3) has a stall door. If you´ve got two out of those three, you´re in good shape, baby. And on that note, it´s time to flush (haha) my first entry to an end.

I miss you all!

Besos y abrazos,

Alex