Yunguilla, Halloween, Fiesta

Since we got to Cuenca, we’ve been hearing about the annual excitement and general state of chaos that the Fiestas of Cuenca, a celebration of independence, bring to town. People from all over come to Cuenca to celebrate, and everyone who has something to sell (food, alcohol, handicrafts, hotel, etc) works like crazy while everyone else takes 4-5 days off. Finally, the fiestas have arrived and at the suggestion of several of our friends we decided to get out of town for a couple of days to avoid the craziness.

Plans always change here—at least a couple of times. We planned to take Saturday and Sunday off, then take part in the celebration Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (working during the day, then partying in the afternoons). However, a researcher from Quito who worked at the same field sites in 1994 and 2000 called to say that he would like to come on Sunday. Awesome, I’ve been looking forward to meeting this guy for a while—so we decided to take our vacation on Friday and Saturday instead.

Brad had been hearing about a nice little valley about an hour’s drive from Cuenca and 1000m lower in altitude called Yunguilla. However, we couldn’t find any info about this place where all the Cuencanos have country homes in our guidebook. So our computer tech friend, Manuel, hooked us up with a reservation at the best hosteria he knew of, and directions to get there. We took off Thursday afternoon, excited to be heading toward warmer weather and onto another adventure. At Manuel’s recommendation, we stopped at a roadside stand for the locally brewed “mapanagua” made from sugarcane. His words were, “they conveniently put it in a cup with a lid and straw so you can drink and drive responsibly.” Well, ours came in a plastic bag and we chose to wait until safely arriving at our hotel before taking a sip. It was sweet, and tangy, and STRONG so we contented ourselves with a few sips each then took a nap.

When we woke up, we were ready for showers and dinner. So we turned on the water and waited, and waited, and waited. We had to ask the staff how to get hot water, and since we were the only people staying that night, they didn’t have the water heater on. Awesome, so finally after 45 minutes of 2 guys running back and forth and up and down while I watched a beautiful sunset from our balcony while wearing a towel we had hot water. So then we ventured out to a place called El Bambu that our friends recommended for dinner. It was closed. Awesome, we had just told the hotel owner to send his kitchen staff home because we were eating elsewhere and there wasn’t another decent looking restaurant open in site. It all worked out though, the owner sent us 5 minutes down the road where we could have our pick of a number of roadside restaurants. We chose one called “Restaurant Azuay” and enjoyed a decent meal of fried shrimp and a local favorite called mote pillo.

The next day, we chilled all day long. We ate a delicious breakfast of orange juice, fruit salad, scrambled eggs, toast with jam and milk coffee which was served with delightful presentation. We sat by the pool, we sat in the pool, we read our books, we reapplied sunscreen, we ordered a pitched of lemonade, and we did a whole lot of nothing besides take in the warm and beautiful weather. After wearing long pants and long sleeves and jackets every day it felt so good to sit around comfortably in a swimsuit. Then it was time to shower. Let’s just say it was like groundhog’s day. First, we couldn’t get any water at all in the shower. The man who ran the hotel quickly apologized and then asked the woman to stop watering the flowers so we could take showers—then he disappeared. No hot water, and no one to help us out. So instead of eating at the hotel’s restaurant like we told the owner, we went to make a reservation at El Bambu. We arrived, and they were clearly cleaning up and getting ready to leave. However, they were willing to wait around if we could sit down to dinner before 7:00. So we went back to the hotel, changed our clothes (without showering) and as we were leaving to return to El Bambu the owner appeared. We expressed our dissatisfaction, told him that again there was no hot water, and left for dinner.

We enjoyed a decent (but not great) parillada dinner, and returned to our hotel expecting to find hot water waiting for us. No. While we were gone, they hadn’t fixed the problem and again there was no water at all. So we went back down to the front desk, explained the problem, and sent the owner running around for another 45 minutes trying to get us hot water. First, he had the lady stop watering the flowers again. Then he said there wasn’t enough water to turn on the heater. Finally he decided that all along he had been telling us to turn the first knob when really we needed to turn the second knob. Voila! Hot water! Honestly, it’s not worth getting mad—this is just typical of small-town Ecuador.

So Saturday morning we repeated Friday morning and enjoyed the sunshine, warmth, and great pool-side weather. We stayed until 3:00 in the afternoon, then drove to Cuenca to see what the hubbub was all about. We were sent to an artisan market which we found and enjoyed quite a bit, then to a Cuencano Night which we couldn’t find, but instead found a second artisan market. Afterwards, we met up with some friends at a Halloween party, sponsored by our favorite hostel and internet hot spot café, where there was music, dancing, and costumes of indigenous clothing. All in all, we had a great time and are excited to see the upcoming festivities (the party goes until Wednesday!)