Still Walking

Our Sunday walking partners, Chuck and Nancy, are traveling, but we're walking anyway...not as much fun without them and we did leave mid morning (a little later than usual).  Last Sunday was a pretty normal Sunday.
All the excitement with the political unrest last week seems to be over and we're pretty much back to normal here in Cuenca. 

We saw a parade on the way...

A statue of Mary and lots of incense and rose petals and people.

We love the street entertainers!  This adorable little girl did, too.

A quick pass at the Park on the way to the Kook...soldiers and trucks. 

We think they were there, just in case...we saw police out, too.

We bought some tangerines from this young lady...the best tangerines in town!

We also took a walk to town during the week with Barbara and Howard.

Here are some fun pictures from that day.  A different route, so different scenery.

You never know what's behind the closed doors we pass on Sundays, so it was fun to see some of the shops open....a shoe repair shop and a guitar workshop.

New-to-us street art!  Along Av G Sangurima, on the way to the CA Kitchen.

We ended up at the market, a couple blocks from the CA Kitchen.  This market is known for their baskets, kitchen stuff and simple furniture.

We saw a gratifying event the other day.  A young man was holding traffic on a busy street so an elder could cross safely.  The elderly woman was walking very slowly with a cane and a heavy load on her back.  We thought, isn't that nice?  The young man just saw it as his duy to help.  Yes, the cars stopped and waited as the young man escorted her across. No one was impatient, no road rage, no horns blaring.  After the couple crossed, the drivers went right back to their crazy driving...

One another walk, we ended up at the Terrace for lunch.  New menu with new prices!

Our favorite Terrace steak is now over $9!  Used to be $6 something.  We almost 'bit the bullet' and ordered, but then we remembered last time the Terrace steak wasn't all that great...a little tough...and the serving was a little small, so we passed...we were starving!

They also were unable to serve any wine by the glass...but you could buy a bottle.

Not sure, but maybe we got the Gringo menu...

We ended up with burgers (no cheese) and fries (both still good), but that price went up, too...$7 something now. We still like their outside dining on a nice day, but, wow!  those new prices!!  What a jump!

 Weather here has been a little rain, a little sun...typical for this time of year.  Not as cold as it's been at night, with some hot, intense sun during the day.  One day this week we got some huge raindrops, the size of quarters!, and even some pea-sized hail.  But it was brief.  We saw a rainbow this morning!  Always a welcome, hopeful sight to start the day.

Here are pictures of our river (taken recently from the walking bridge near the Adobe rental on Av 12 April).  You can see the water level is way down.  No water usually means no power.

But, we also hear there are more safeguards in place this year, over last, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that we don't have a drought again this year (like we did in 2009). 

We'll post more pics later of other walks around town...always something fun to see.






Here's another sunset from the porch:

The sky was on fire!