I wandered around the area between our hotel and the river -- the heart of El Centro. Made 2 trips to the panama hat place, because the hat still was too small. The city is vibrant with loads of people out on the streets and in shops on Saturday -- old folks, teenagers, little kids, a few gringos. By the way, "gringo" here isn't a slur; it just means someone who isn't Ecuadorian -- Chinese, Italian, North American, other European, etc.
I spent most of the rest of the day indoors, doing research on an issue that started bothering me yesterday -- air quality and pollution in Cuenca. It's involved enough that I'll save it for a separate post.
Late in the day I wandered back out for a double scoop of oreo ice cream and consumed it on a park bench in the Parque Calderon -- the city's center and a beautiful spot -- constant cool breezes, young couples (and some not so young) on almost every other bench. Finished the walk looking upwards, starting to look for possible apartments for our next trip -- probably for a month.
My new friends Davis and Juan just returned from an 8-hour guided tour of the city's neighborhoods with a former New Yorker turned guide. The say the tour has convinced them to move here, even though he was brutally honest with them about what the city is really like.
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