#2788, Saturday, February 26, '22: A great day, and more

Reverend Ken's Travel Blog

Post 2788

- 12 years and 57 days since I started this blog -

Winter Travel Journal

(written February 26, 2022)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 12 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, originally 7 days a week, then 5, but lately it has become occasional. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

I was invited by my friend Felipe to accompany him to the craft and market town of Gualacea, a 45-minute bus ride from Cuenca. Of course, I immediately accepted the invitation. Anthony was with me at the time, and he decided to come along, too. 

This was on Wednesday, February 23rd. I'm going to try and tell the story of the day in pictures and captions. The story of that night, unfortunately, has no pics at all. That's some kind of balance, I guess.

Here we go:

We met up at my place, the Hotel Balcón del Arte. This picture makes it look tiny, but those windows and doors on the ground floor are sixteen feet tall. Like a lot of buildings in Cuenca (and all of Latin America), it's bigger than it looks from the outside. Much bigger. From the street, you can't see the roof or the top floor, which start about fifteen yards behind the front facade of the building. And there's a huge skylight over the lobby, higher than that! It's also deep, about a half block deep. The smoking terrace is at the rear of the building, at roof level, and it is so far from the front desk

The Tranvia. This photo is from two years ago, when it was being tested. It didn't go into service until 2021. It is the most modern (and recent) cable car system in all the Americas.

Anthony and I on the Tranvia. It's very comfortable, very fast, convenient, and relatively cheap. The same route takes you to the bus station (our destination this trip), and the airport in one direction, and in the other direction, out to Gringolandia, Cuenca's modern high-rise section, to the east of the downtown city center, El Centro, where I am staying. The nearest stop is three blocks from the Balcón. 
Note: All the pics that show me and Anthony were taken by Felipe. All the pics of just me were Anthony or Felipe, and I don't know which are which. Any pic of Anthony or Felipe is mine. 

No pictures from the bus terminal or the forty-minute bus trip to Gualaceo. Felipe had some bureaucratic business to do, but first we walked to the center of the small town. Felipe explained that on the weekends, Gualaceo was crowded with Cuencanos going shopping. He said a lot of the woven cloth, clothes, and shoes sold in Cuenca are made here, and are less expensive to buy here than in Cuenca. We stopped in a tidy little park across the street from a church, fed the pigeons (above) and had a little lunch - both Felipe and Anthony had brought sandwiches and empańadas for the trip. 

Anthony wanted to see the inside of the church, whose outside was seriously impressive, with a statue of one of the Spanish conquistadors who founded the colonial cities in Ecuador, usually on the sites of Incan villages and cities. I don't generally go into churches unless they're also sectarian tourist sites (the 'New' Cathedral in Cuenca, Chapel of Skulls in Faro, Portugal). I'm a heathen, an interloper, and fear, if my beliefs are wrong, getting struck by lightning.

Once Felipe had had his visit with the Department of Frustrating and Unreslovable Bureaucracy, we needed to decompress, so we visited a beautiful little park in the center of Gualaceo - an oasis on a hot day (Gualaceo is about 1500' lower in elevation than Cuenca, so about ten degrees warmer). It was so pretty and peaceful. 

Detail of the fountain in the park.

Next, a walk to the Rio San José, which runs alongside downtown Gualaceo. Very beautiful.

We walked along the banks of the Rio San José until we came upon this rickety footbridge. Crossing was kind of fun. Like being drunk fun. The bridge moved with everybody's every step. People on bikes walked their bikes across. Still, picturesque.  

Picture of the Rio San José from the footbridge in the pic above.

On the other side of the river, there was a park and picnic area. I recognized a 'whispering wall' - a wall constructed with geometry that has an interesting acoustic property - efficient transmission of vibrations. A whisper on one side can be heard clearly, amplified, by someone on the other end. Neither Anthony nor Felipe had experienced this phenomenon, so it was fun demonstrating it. Just a random bit of tivial information I picked up in Philadelphia a half-century ago.
Felipe then decided we should take a ride to a little town in the mountains outside of . 

A five minute, four-dollar cab ride from Gualaceo landed us in Chordeleg's town square. About 90% of the surrounding stores are selling jewelry. They pan for gold and dig for silver here. This was very interesting to Anthony and Felipe. Me? Not so much. But Chordeleg is a downright beautiful town, with a delightful central square, a cool and beautiful central park and incredible views of the Andes. 

I walked around behind the greenish-yellow church in the town square. Access was limited but I got these aforementioned spectacular views of the Andes. That's the town of Chordeleg down below, and some kind of burn-off causing the smoke left-of-center. That peak behind the smoke is at about 10,000 feet above sea level.  

I'm going to break into the pictorial here to talk about what happened next, because there aren't pictures, or anything picturesque.

What happened next was that I got dehydrated and couldn't find a place to get a cold drink, while Felipe and Anthony were absorbed in the towns endless array of silver and gold jewelry and crafts. Finally, I found a place that had a liter-and-a-half bottle of cold water. A few moments later, after I had drunk almost half the bottle in a single gulp, we found a place that had cold juice. The owner spoke English, and it turned out, before he came back to Chordeleg and opened a restaurant, he'd worked for a few decades in Connecticut, where Anthony lives. Lively conversation ensued, with a lot of humor, and the juice was great. 

Felipe had mentioned he new a place with excellent mote pata, an Ecuadorian thick, chowder-like soup that the Southern part of Cuenca (where we were) was particularly known for. I was all for that - I'd had Felipe's version, and if he said this was the best, we were down for it.

It didn't take any persuading when Anthony suggested he and I split a cab straight back to that restaurant in Cuenca, We had some interesting traffic along the way, including handsome cabs with the horses, on flatbed trucks heading for the Carnaval in Cuenca, which officially kicked off the following day.

We got to the restaurant, Rancho Chileno without event, and a lot faster than the bus-cab combination had gotten us out there. Rancho Chileno was gigantic, and at 3:30pm in the afternoon, almost empty. 

We were shown to a second-floor patio table overlooking Calle Espańa, which was on the Tranvia route, plast the airport and bus terminal. The menus, when we got them, were handed were oversized. But we were there for one thing: the mote pata. 

At our table at Rancho Chileno, Anthony explains how things work to me...

...but we're still friends.

This is Felipe and Mayra, part-owner and General Manager of Rancho Chileno. Felipe saw her and called out to her - she's an old friend. She is an adorable combination of smart, funny, and warm friendliness. Introductions were made, Photos taken (above). It was a grand reunion and the beginning of a wonderful afternoon.

Soon, Mayra joined the conversation and we had a rolicking good time, including a marriage proposal to her from Anthony: "You could be my next ex-wife" and an attempt by me to steal her away. Discussing how we knew Felipe, and the comparative qualities of his and her mote patas, the subject changed to fanesca, the Easter soup that, in pursuit of the best, Calvin Trillin of the New Yorker, wrote an article about his search for the best fanesca put Cuenca on the map in 2006, with a growing expat population ever since. When Mayra heard this story, she announced that she had won the award for best fanesca in Cuenca a couple of years ago. And, that, contrary to to tradition, when nit is only made for the weaks leading up to Easter, she was making it forty days earlier. As in next week. Above, she is showing us her award, while anthony writes down the address of the restaurant to make sure we come back for fanesca next week. Felipe made fanesca for me at A Pedir De Boca, and it was the best soup I'd ever eaten. Which reminds me to mention that Rancho Chileno's mote papa was great, yes, as Felipe promised, the best. Not that I ever had any doubts about that.

Here's Mayra and I. What a wonderful afternoon we all had. She even said I could play at Rancho Chileno if I liked. If I had the kind of equipment I'd need (minimally, a PA and a guitar), I would, too. I'll be honest: I can't wait to go back to Rancho Chileno. Next week, I will.

From Rancho Chileno, we walked a block or so to the Tranvia stop, and this time I learned how to buy a ticket. That'll come in handy, even in the short time I have left here (eight days as I write this). The Tranvia runs frequently, we hardly had any wait, and in about twelve minutes I was saying goodbye and jumping off at my stop.

And that was my day.

I was energized, and looking forward to playing that evening at the Wednesday Bistro Yaku open mic. There was an element of suspense, because I didn't know how this one was going to work. George had told me last Saturday that he and the band had split up and he wasn't going to be hosting it.

I guessed - not assumed - that the rest of the band would host without George. But I didn't know, and any guess I made was not an educated one. 

Good thing I'm not a gambling man. I had never seen any member of the host band before, in any context. They seemed like nice guys. Doing the setup, the bass player seemed to be the leader (a good sign, he thought to himself). Turns out that was a wrong guess, too. It was the keyboard/sax/flute player. I had heard him warming up on the flute in the courtyard just outside the restaurant, and not knowing who he was, thought I'd invite him up with me, he sounded good. 

That sound check was the first indication that things were going to be different, maybe better, too. Sure enough, when the first of the open mic players got up, a woman I'd heard a number of times, she sounded better than ever. So did the next guy, and the next. I'd heard all of them before, but never better than that night.

I was called up to do my acoustic guitar and vocals set, but there was no acoustic guitar, so I played a Fender Stratocaster (m favorite electric guitar). So, for the first time anywhere, I played a strat and sang I got a good response, too.

Then came the house band, and they were great. They played jazz. Standards and post-bop. Funk and classic jazz. 

I got on the phone and told Anthony and Bela (the guitarist/harp player/singer I'd met at other open mics) they were missing some great music. 

Bela got there in time for the last couple of host band songs, then he played a set. Then I got up to do my bass and vocals thing. 

I thought it was great. All the songs were played, for the first time ever, with a keyboard, drums and bass configuration. Solos were on keys, sax and flute. I had a great time, got some long playing time, and everybody was smiling.

I got off stage just as Anthony arrived.

As happy as I was at that point, things were about to get better. The host band took the stage, played Miles Davis' 'So What' and then invited a guitarist up. For the next half hour or so, we were treated to some great music, the guitarist was awesome and everybody's playing seemed to rise to a higher level.

The guitarist stepped down to great applause, and was replaced by another guitarist. And this guy was just nuts. He was amazingly good. His solos were intense, and his rhythm work, comping behind the keys and bass solos, was incredible. This rarely happens to me these days, but I couldn't take my eyes off the guitar.

What a night of music. These were the best musicians I had seen in Cuenca, the best musicians I had played with. An amazing experience for me.

Walking back to the hotel, I couldn't resist getting another shot of the Cuenca sign put up for Carnaval, which started the next day.

What a night!

I'm a lucky guy. I couldn't be more grateful.

Food Comment

Mote pata is a traditional Ecuadorian dish made from mote, which is an Andean grain something like hominy, peanuts and pork. It is made for Carnaval, which is a mysterious celebration (I haven't been able to find out what is being celebrated) that happens in Cuenca in February or March. This will be my second. In my personal opinion, the mote pata is the best part. The parades, music, and partying that marks the Thursday-to-Tuesday festivities are accompanied by being covered with foam spray, water from buckets, and jostled by pickpockets. But I digress. Pictured is the mote pata we had at Rancho Chileno. I had a few samples on my first visit to Cuenca two years ago. The best was Felipe's from A Pedir de Boca. With Felipe there to validate, Rancho Chileno's was better.

The brick oven at Panadería Internacional. Anthony turned me on to this place. They make the most amazing breads. I am addicted to their sourdough rye - to the point where I cannot have it around. I can't stop eating it if it is near me. Just as good, and more lethal: They make a chocolate bread that may be, quite literally, to die for.  

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