After a full night’s sleep, Katie and I had some coffee while listening to a million fireworks going off nearby. The fireworks here just make noise (a lot of noise) and don’t actually put on a show like they do in the US. It’s kind of obnoxious after awhile, especially when you’re trying to sleep or when you have a dog that HATES fireworks. Ha. After coffee we headed into the main house for breakfast. Barb made eggs and toast and bacon and pineapple. We also had some Yaupon tea that Barb drinks every morning in lieu of coffee. After breakfast we called the airlines to see if there was any progress on Katie’s bags. It turned out that they made it to the Guayaquil airport, just a bit later then we did. Score!
We then headed out to the annual Cuenca Christmas Eve Parade. We met two of Barb and Mike’s friends there and wandered through the parade (note: it wasn’t moving at all at this point). There were kids dressed up with moustaches and fancy clothes and decorated horses and cars covered in decorations and floats adorned with food and whole roasted pigs and chickens (head still on). It was quite the site. There were also tons of street vendors selling delicious smelling food. We stopped for some coconut water that came straight from a coconut. It was delicious.
^^I loved this girl’s dress^^
After a while we broke away from the crowd (there were SO many people in the streets there) and Katie, Mike and I decided to head back to the house. We hailed a cab and got inside. Cabs here don’t have seatbelts, usually cost less than $2 to take across town and are kind of terrifying because as far as I can tell there are no traffic laws and taxis honk at pedestrians and it’s a bit crazy. As Mike said, “traffic lights are merely a suggestion here.” But they’re easy to hail and super cheap so we’ve taken a lot of them. Also, Mike and Barb’s place doesn’t have a real address or a street number, so we leave it to one of them to explain in Spanish to the cab drivers where the house is. Fun times!
When we got back to the house we walked to a shop to get Katie’s passport copied and then walked back to the house to wait for Havierre who we hoped could pick up Katie’s bags from the Guayaquil airport. After we gave him the copies we walked down the street to get some lunch. Katie got a combo plate with both tripe and goat, I tried a little of each. The tripe was in a delicious peanut sauce and one bite of the goat was enough for me. I had a fried corvina fish with rice and salad and French fries which was delicious.
After lunch we caught a bus (our first one since being here) to the marcado where we bought Santa hats and some really delicious fruits neither Katie nor I had ever tried before. The marcado was the most magical place, Katie and I had a blast looking at all the fruits and trying to talk to the vendors in v broken espanol. I wanted to purchase all the fruits. Apparently we are going back on Saturday when the market will be in full swing! I will buy more then!
When we got back to the house Katie and I thought that it might be nice to sit on the roof deck with a few beers and read for a bit. We walked a few houses down to the market to get 4 beers (1 each for the 4 of us). They cost $1 each, you guys! They were huge and it was awesome. So we sat outside and we read and it was really nice.
After it started to get a little dark we came inside and watched the movie August: Osage County which Barb picked up that day downtown for $1.50. It looked like it was in a legit case but the DVD inside was a burned one and there were English subtitles you couldn't turn off (the movie itself was in English as well). Despite all that, it was a good, albeit intense and kind of cray cray movie. We ate some lasagna and bread during the movie. Since the altitude is so high here, bread is much different than it is in Seattle. It’s good, but different. Thinner, I think. After we finished I suggested Katie open one of her Christmas gifts early so we could enjoy it that night. I got her the game Cards Against Humanity and the four of us actually had a blast drinking wine and playing until we went to bed.
It was a great second day in Cuenca!
