Pees On Earth

Hola, the past few days have been spent meandering around Cuenca in all kinds of weather…taking pictures of buildings, people, and quaint moments in time.

The Pumapungo Incan archaeological site in Cuenca dates from around 1460, at a time when the Incas were continuing to expand and colonize areas north from Cuzco in Peru.


The Pumapungo Museum and ruins in Cuenca give a great indication as to how sophisticated the Inca people were…probably the most industrious and disciplined people in the Americas at the time, with an eye for an advantage that would lead to huge trade surpluses and leisure time...ceramics, textiles, metallurgy, jewelry, and great food would follow. You name it, they could make it, or do it in style…that is, until about 1533 when Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors routed the Incas and took Cuzco. A way of life was about to be destroyed.

      

The city of Cuenca (Spanish for “basin”) was founded in 1557 by the Spanish at the Inca village site of Pumapongo, and the rest, they say, is history. The Spanish pretty much dismantled the stone buildings and plundered what they could.


I’ve included a few photos of what I’ve observed over the past few days.

Most of the photos were taken within a few blocks of my hotel (El Conquistador, named in honor of Juan Pizarro).





The streets are always clean…I saw one pro in a blue uniform whose specialty with a broom was cigarette butts. Street industry takes many forms, from children selling ice cream to old men selling chocolate covered coconut balls. The souvenirs I’ve gotten are “hecho a mano” here in Cuenca.

Food is fresh everyday, and tastes like it. Sometimes I make the mistake of ordering two items on a menu, because I’m thinking there can’t be much food there for the low price I’m paying. Wrong. There’s always a lot...

I met a fellow traveler earlier in the week…she was checking out the local Spanish language schools where one can spend a few hours (and dollars) per day to learn Spanish better. The average cost is around $8 per hour, with a minimum of two hours per session….so do the math, and then think about showing up on time in a structured environment doing a bunch of "donde estas" and "yo tengo frio"  Here's a picture of one of the escuelas.


I’ve also included a picture of my Spanish language education center (below), where after two hours and about $16 my Spanish sounds almost perfect to me, maybe a little loud, but only slightly confrontational. It’s the bar in the Hotel El Conquistador, and if you want to learn a few "me gustas" in a less structured environment for about the same amount of money try my approach next time.

Some other observations: There is not much begging on the streets…at least not by children. The picture of the old lady shown below was taken two days ago next to one of the iglesias near Calderon Park. I gave her a one dollar Betsy Ross coin and she let me take her picture. I saw her about an hour later sitting a couple blocks away with a smile on her face.

The two Rorschach Psychological Test photos I included above would probably elicit a religious epiphany from my sister starting with “Holy…” … but the phenomena appears (literally) almost everyday, and no sacred iglesia wall has been spared as far as I can tell. I’m not sure who’s religious statement that represents, but no public bathrooms are available, so perhaps, as the old saying goes: Just do it!


TV is pretty much the same here on satellite as back home…just in Spanish. I actually saw Los Tres Stoogies on TCM the other morning, and realized some things never change…like my bad habits of watching that stuff.

Yesterday I was invited to an Ecuadorian friend’s house where they had just cooked a pig…a little fiesta was taking place in honor of a family member’s birthday (cumpleanos). I was the only person there speaking English, yet they made me feel welcome and at home. Mi casa es su casa takes on an honest form here. And after some cerveza I think my espanol was pretty good. I’m glad I’m devoting at least two hours a day to learning Spanish in the Hotel El Conquistador bar.

However, a quick cooking tip here: when working a pig of that size don’t try stuffing it into an oven…they just used a blowtorch attached to a 10 gallon propane tank and cooked the outside of it (much like you would to burn off weeds in a field) ...all in less than two hours time on their patio, after which they took a machete to the rest of it and proceeded to butcher it it up, most of it for homemade pork sausage and ribs.

The ladies seen in the next photo chopped cabbage and herbs into that big bowl the whole time I was there...and they had about 25 more cabbages to go.



That’s about it for now….this post is going out a little late tonight as I traveled to Ingapirca today…the largest of Inca ruins in Ecaudor, and I got back late. The second photo in this blog of the perfectly cut thousand pound stone rocks, brought from miles away, and stacked without mortar to last forever, was from there, placed without modern tools or technology. Amazing what could be done once upon a time.

One final note, the bars are closed here on Sundays, so I couldn't practise my espanol with anyone. Que lastima!

Saludos!