#2986, Monday, March 6, 2023: Actually, a week later, and then some

Post 2986

- 13 years and 65 days since I started this blog -

Journal

(written March 6, 2023)

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, but lately it has become infrequent. 

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

I started writing this blog post in Guayaquil, in a pleasant hotel across the highway from the airport. When I left, in the middle of the night, the international part of the winter was done.

I spent the next week traveling. Out of those seven days, I got only 2 nights of good sleep. I was in transit 5 of the seven days. It was brutal, and I didn't get to finish the writing until I reached my last stop of this Winter trip, in Wilbur-by-the-Sea, Florida, just South of Daytona Beach Shores.

Getting back to my last week in Ecuador, It was a great week, although I don't have too many photographs to show for it. That's what happens when you get caught up in what you're doing. I wasn't good about stopping for pics. In fact, many of this post's photos are from friends.

Claudia, who has lived in Cuenca for three years, had never been to Capitán, my favorite seafood restaurant. So I took her.

Me, Claudia, Orly (el Capitán) after yet another great meal. Yes, everybody's all smiles.

The 'traditional' post-meal serenade. I've done this after every single meal I've eaten at Capitán, from the first time four years ago.

A few nights later, we went to the open mic at Bistro Yaku. Earlier that day, I'd met Peter Nolan on the street and asked him to come to the open mic, because I hadn't heard him play since meeting him in Cuenca before the pandemic. To my great pleasure, he did show up and play. He even invited Claudia to play some harp with him. 

Claudia did a set with Josep, an extraordinary bass player who manages to accompany a variety of singers on bass, and make it sound beneficially arranged, on bass alone.

The wonderful Peter Nolan. Peter travels the world like me, but more. He travels with his wife Sharon, and has a one-man blues show that enables him to play literally anywhere he can stand. We have performed in a few of the same places, once, when we first met a few years ago, at the same time. After his set, a woman came up and gave one of the best vocal performances I've ever heard, anywhere. It even included her imitating a trumpet, and singing a great trumpet solo. When it was over, Peter came over to me and said, "We're never going to forget what we just heard." Confirmation that I didn't imagine what had just happened. I heard a lot of phenomenally good music while I was in Ecuador. But really, that's par for the course.

Next, and 'final' event, Saturday night, Claudia's  band, Blues Enigma, had a gig at a new venue, and I'd been invited to sit in.

So, me 'sitting in.' I am aware that I am standing. Thank you. It was a lot of fun, and the most playing I got to do since Chiang Mai!

This is the Blues Enigma Band. While I played bass, their bass player switched to lap steel guitar. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of that. These pics are from my friend Anthony.

That's really the highlights of my last week. 

Here are some walking around pics:

Anthony and me discussing some... things. We're opinionated.

The day I left Cuenca, Claudia, Felipe, Anthony, Diego the taxista and I went to Sinfonía and had pastrami and cheese on sourdough, with dijon mustard I had donated to the shop. 

And then I got on my minibus to Guayaquil, and it was over. 

Food Comment

Pedregal Azteca is the best Mexican restaurant I've eaten at outside of Oaxaca, and that's the highest compliment I can give a Mexican restaurant. Everything, from the tortilla chips and dip to dessert was excellent. This mole poblano con pollo was seriously good, even compared to the last mole I'd had, which was in Oaxaca. 

From Paccari, at Casa de Coco, we have a cheesecake with a chocolate crust. Again, seriously good. Due to my late-in-the-trip discovery (it opened two weeks before I left, but I didn't go there until my last week, it was the only thing I ate in the café, although I had Pacari chocolate (I don't know why the café's two 'c's and the chocolate's one 'c') every day once I'd found it. 

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