A new toy, an electric pen

I am testing a new pen which captures
drawings as well as audio. It was made
to record meetings, lectures and the
like. I want to see if it will allow me to
sketch, in effect, on line.

the background is from people at near
by tables, McDonalds I think....The pen
does remember when the drawing and
sound was recorded.

$99 at Staples.

The last week in Cuenca

An example of an event gringos get up to. A local group of writers and wanabee writers, WIT,& my design for a poster.

The sun has been out the last couple of days. What an
improvement this makes in attitudes. Mine is up because of the
sunshine. There seemed to be weeks of rain without breaks up
until a few days ago. I am flirting with the idea of Mexico. The
rain pushed me to it. A couple of gringas one who lives there
now and another who has extensively traveled there have been
lobbying for it. It does satisfy my criteria of late, Spanish
and a warm sun. Hearing that this rain isn't normal doesn't do
much for my confidence as I make the choices regarding residence
here. In Ecuador people don't doubt climate change. The weather
in the mountains has been SO consistent for so long that this
change is conspicuous. I do like the city of Cuenca. It is a big
city layed out as lots of small neighborhoods abutted. The grid
of narrow one way streets makes being a pedestrian feasible

despite the pin ball behavior of the vehicles. I could live here
but maybe I want to do more exploring. Meeting so many people
who have been to Peru, Argentina, Columbia,Uruguay, etc...has
perked my interest. There is a summer in Maine ahead, not a bad
country to revisit. Also thoughts of Europe. Lots of EU tourists
have come thru the hostel in the two months Ive lived here. Just
two reasons I am not in Europe now, winter and cost. Maybe the
fall in Germany and Spain and the winter in Ecuador or Mexico.
Need to price the airfare for that thought. Had I world enough
and time, I would see it all.

A photo of Ponche, the boss of upper Hermano Miquel, the street I live on in Cuenca. Ponche keeps order here, he allowsno other dog to lay on the sidewalk. No other dog can mooch a meal at the several restraunts. Car alarms are barked at by Ponche until they stop. Tires are marked with an attention not matched by any meter maid, as soon as a vehicle parks.

More Ingapirca photos & winding down

Detail of flowers of a tree on the Ingapirca site

This noon several of the gringos who collect at the bookstore in the morning had lunch at the California Kitchen. I joined them. A nice restraunt about eight blocks away. Two of the Gringas were to leave the next day. One returning to Mexico where she lives. The other to explore Costa Rica. I think I had sworn to keep away from gringos. It is difficult to ignore the common language, culture and circumstance(s). So you get to know people. If I was the hermit I fancy myself sometimes I would be up in the hills cooking over a wood fire. I'd only come into town once a month for supplies. One could easily live for a couple of hundred a month. Wash and bathe in a stream. This is how its done in the boonies just outside Cuenca. But damn that water's cold! The solar water heater wouldn't have been much use during the past month. The climate is not what I expected, too wet. The locals say this is unusual. Be that as it may...Mexico is starting to look interesting for next year. Columbia is also a possibility, the Caribean coast.

Inca Ruins

 Susan, ever at the camera, shoots from the bus on the way to Ingapirca

A trip to Ingapirca

Sunday, February 13, I joined a bus load of Gringo(a)s on a tour. We went to the Inca/Canar ruins at Incapirca. On the way we visited a church at Biblian and the market at Canar. The tribe called Canar were conquered by the Incas. The ruins at Ingapirca were of a temple shared by the tribes after that conquest. I was feeling a bit off that day and didn't participate in all of the forced marches. I did walk around the ruin, my main interest. I often thought of my brother who in his youth loved to pile stones upon other stones. He would have been in his element when the temple was being built had he been there. In olden times this area was cloud forest, thick with trees. The trees have been thinned out but the clouds are there. The whole day was spent in drifting mist. The altitude about a thousand feet higher than Cuenca.

  LLamas near the Ingapirca ruins, they make a sound like a small dog barking.

Stones to the  left have been laid out for repair of the temple, by the builders? or recently?

 A view of the ruins

 Every other day theres a photo in the papers of a bus in a revine....now I know why.

Two Gringas book case Maria, the guide's mom. Maria came on the trip, nice woman.



A backlog of text from Cuenca

text entry 1-23-11
The bus tour. Sunday I was feeling well enough or bored enough with not feeling well that I grabbed a bus for the 25c tour. Saturday night somebody had left a bus guide on the common table in the dining room. Fair game, I kopt it. God knows you can't find them on the busses or at the stops. The guide is well done. It lays out the thirty or so routes against a faded map of the city. The first I took dropped me at Feria Libre, a huge market maybe two miles to the south. That is also where the inter city busses going to Loja start from. After walking around the market a while and getting a $2 haircut I caught another bus. The hardest part of the 25c ride is getting the quarter to drop into the slot. Small change is not plentyful and everyone fights to keep theirs. I realized at the market that about half the purchases I make are to break down large bills and coins into quarters. The busses don't make change. Some gringos would spend a dollar for a 25c ride but not me. I spend a dollar to buy 25c in candy and pocket the 75c, usually a quarter and an Ecuadorian 50c piece. Anyway, I believe the slot on the bus would treat a Susan B Anthony like a slug. With the quarter finally in hand I caught a bus from feria libre that went east and north, skirting the foot hills on that side of the valley. I got off I have no idea where and walked to a nearby mall. In the mall I bought butter & a can of mystery meat for dinner and got the all important quarter back with the change for a twenty. The merchants seem to think you're pulling some sort of a trick when you give them a twenty. They were right, I was. I needed another two bits for the bus stop across the street. From the bus I caught there I got to within a block of home. Two of these three bus rides had to dodge huge processions of people walking or riding horses or atop floats. Nearly every Sunday has a Catholic theme parade. Kids wearing angel costumes with sparkly cardboard wings, Drums and flutes and dogs and anything capable of three miles an hour forming a long slinking tail to the processions. Fine with me, my little pickup truck is sleeping under snow and ice and can only dream of such things. 

text entry 1-24-11
Early Monday morning, after breakfast at Bannanas, I walked down the Escalinata and across the river. I carried a 24" by 18" panel of luan plywood painted white on one side. From a Boulder with a view of the bridge and stairs I made a sketch of the scene. I had composed it in advance with the aid of a photo (in post of 11 Jan). In the afternoon back in the hostel I added shaddow to the graphite sketch. Bit by bit, with just grey as color. I have to sneak up on color. Me with color is like watching a teenager learn to drive....I'm all over the place. The resulting sketch with light wash I'm basically happy with...but the more I study it the more I see. Thats OK, I expect to draw and paint the scene dozens of times. Now I notice a couple of geometric distortions. I needed to squeeze the width a bit to fit into the aspect of the panel. Another distortion is the plane of the river vs that of the bridge foundations. That I can fix. It is amazing how much I am not seeing, at first. These sketches are called studies for a reason I guess. Cuenca offers a lot of raw material for studies. The remains of a another bridge, washed out in a flood years ago, awaits me about 1500 feet down stream. I think I will paint it next. Its called Puenta Roto, which means, broken bridge. Both these bridges are on the Rio Tomibamba.

At six that day the Carolina book store threw a byob party. The most gringos I've seen in one place in Cuenca so far. Several dozen. I introduced myself to half a dozen. Their experience ranged from six months to twenty years in Cuenca. It is difficult to not feel the need to gather with fellow citizens now and then. I am sure there are US citizens who avoided it like the plague. There are others who overdue it an try to build a coocon of fellow gringos around them. I suppose I am in the middle somewhere. The age group skews toward my age, retired people for the most part. They come from all over the USA, lots of southerners. The hottest topics (non rumor topics) involve apartment rentals, good deals, good locations. Some really fantastic rentals can be found. Like anywhere it takes a good network, listening to the grapevine well, and luck. As in a big city in the states one might move a couple of times seeking that perfect place. An apartment in the hills above the city on the bus line would be nice. Quiet, a super view. I will be looking.

entry for 1-26-11
Something has triggered questions in my mind. I think it was the blank response the other night from an expat couple to my question about the practicality of going between Maine and Quito every three months. The seeds of doubt can grow in that soil but they don't really threaten the crop. The traveling back and forth serves to comply with the Ecuadorian law regarding a residence visa (Retirement) and my desire to be in Maine summers. This would be for the first two years. If Gaby can secure it, residence would be granted in February of 2011, next month. That would mean that until March of 2013 I could be out of Ecuador for no longer than 90 days at a time. After that my absense from the country could be as long as 18 months.

The difference between me and most of these expats is that I've never thought of relocating. I have consistantly & simply wanted a place for the winter. Ecuador looks like the place. I've extended the idea of winter to six months. So, ideally, I would live here December thru May. Folks with the money and time to live anywhere in northern summer choose Maine. I agree with them, with the snow gone Maine is fine.

Also part of my reasoning is the job I have in Maine. Its just on the weekend but it pads my income nicely. I can keep the job while being absent for the winter, now three months and later possibly six months. Regardless of the Maine job I should be able to suplement income here with artwork. The job may become year round this comming winter, throwing off these calculations. At some point I would give up the job.

As for the practicality of shuttling across the equator every three months....just time and expense. Having no more than carry on baggage would help. Staying in Ecuador for only a couple of days would keep expenses down. Not cutting close to the 90 day point would allow for airline problems.

Otherwise, its self imposed exile thru the Maine summer, away from family and the familiar. I crave change but not too much.

Raymond Chandler in Cuenca

I was reading everything Raymond Chandler ever wrote and I think it was affecting me. I had a jones for the cheap detective stories Chandler flogged at pennies a word back when Roosevelt was in his first term. The stories were packed into the memory of a cheap ebook. I was handling the ebook so much it had gotten itself fitted for a wedding outfit and was checking printers and flower shops. Meanwhile a virus had hung a shingle in my throat. Business was so good there that it expanded into my lungs. It encouraged me to cough as much as possible, viruses really think its a good idea and I couldn't seem to argue the point. So there we were, me the virus and Chandler, the best of pals when somebody suggested a doctor. "OK", I said between hacks, "if you think I should", They not only did, they set me up for later that day. In my country I explained, its thirty dollars for the car park next to the doctor's office. But you ain't at home pal, in fact you ain't even in the northern hemisphere anymore. It all started to make sense. Thirty clams to the sawbones, twenty to the pharmacia for tablets and an inhailer. The virus was starting to get nervous and I was halfway thru the pile of Dectective stories. Nothing lasts forever, not a good cold or a pile of pulp fiction.

A Second post from Cuenca

This photo of the top of a round tower is taken from the middle of the Escalinata. The second photo is of the same tower from the opposite side. The building would be interesting on level ground but set into a fifty degree slope it a becomes a geometric challenge.

The curved tile of  the roof is the norm for roofs here. I am glad of that, it adds to the near mythical  look of the town, like the  setting for an ancient fable. I am sure these tile are used because it makes practical and economic sense when the materials are at hand. Their use must be very ancient...did the Romans come up with them?

The Escalinata as it looked in 1935 and today . The older view is detail from a ceramic plaque on the wall at the top of the stairs. I counted them. From the top there are five groups with a landing below each. The stairs number from the top 22,11,17,17,17. The total comes to 84. I must have that play/movie stuck in my head, the 39 steps. Here its not 39 but 84.

with the bridge in the foreground a very nice composition. I am girding up my loins and pumping  the creative iron in getting ready to paint this view. Something I will come back to many times. The town is very paintable, it is the genuine article, very photogenic. I think it is the organic way things have been built, no great master plan, just bit by bit.

The wi-fi problem has found a partial solution. It involves going up to the third floor balcony of the Hostel across the street. My host, Marta, has rooms in buildings on both sides of the street. From that balcony there is enough of a signal to connect to the free city wi-fi. Since I like to dabble in things electronic and involving radio waves I am thinking of a technical solution to this problem, an antenna. Although it is a simple thing I might put it off until I am back in my shop in Maine. Finding the needed cable would be a challenge...and, as I am reminded often, I have only a month and a half left here.

On Tuesday the 11th I caught a bus at random. It was the route #10 I think. It was moving away from the city center, to the north. Past the airport and its approach lights set among packed houses. Past industrial parks and schools and warehouse. All the while in the chaos of traffic and people the bus stopped to pick up and discharge passengers. After a while the city began to thin a bit and there were fields of corn or cows grazing in empty lots between the houses. The road that had been a compromise between potholes and pavement turned to dirt. The bus pitched and rolled even more on the rutted unpaved path which was generally up hill. Eventually I was the only person left and the driver gave me a funny look...as if to say, "another lost gringo". I explained that I was making a "viaje turistico, para visto el campo" , a tourist trip to see the country. He said he needed to sit ten minutes to realign the schedule. So we did that. I sketched a house in the distance and he stretched outside. When the driver started up the engine again I dropped another quarter in the box and we were bouncing down the hills toward Cuenca. These city busses are a great way to get to know the area. They go a long way into the hills and throughout the urban areas yet cost close to nothing.