Lists.

I’ve learned a few things since arriving in Ecuador that I thought I’d share with you all.  I call this list my “Handy-Dandy Cuencan Survival Guide”.

1.)  Never tell people you’re an American if you intend to buy something from them/pay them for something.  It doesn’t matter how nice they seem.  If they know you’re American, they’ll overcharge you.  This probably applies to just about every foreign country, actually.

2.)  Always anticipate the fact that even though someone may be half as big as you, they can probably eat twice as much as you do and still have room for dessert.  This always astonishes me when I’m having lunch with my host family.  My host mother may be the size of a bird, but while I’m struggling to clear my plate, she’ll have cleared her plate, eaten a bowl of soup, and then nibbled on some popcorn while she was waiting for me to finish.  The same applies to everyone else in my host family.  I haven’t done a comparative study yet to see if it’s true everywhere.

3.)  Know where you’re going before you leave.  And I mean really know, not just a vague “Oh, I’m pretty sure we go that way.”  This one has already gotten me into trouble.  Thank goodness I can read a map.

4.)  People are always more helpful if you buy something from them.  Another one of those rules that probably applies everywhere.

5.)  Always buy your bottled water from the little old lady by the bus stop on Avenida Presidente Cordova.  Seriously, she charged me twenty cents for the bottle of water that I bought.  I was shocked.  And she was very nice about changing a dollar for me so I could take the bus.

6.)  Money belts, while a responsible thing to use in a foreign country, are completely and totally impractical when you’re using an ATM.  Unless you like being stared at while you fumble with your clothing, trying to get your money into your money belt without being obvious about the fact that you just made a withdrawal and are now carrying a ton of cash.

7.)  Never try to move while the bus is in the process of stopping, even if you do have to get to the door to get off.  That is, if you don’t want to crash into every single person within a five foot radius of you.

8.)  The only real problem with going home after dark is inability to see your bus stop.  At least, if you live in a nice neighborhood like I do.

9.)  Always make sure there’s someone around who speaks Spanish fluently if you need to call a cab.  I don’t know what it is about people who work at taxi companies, but I can’t understand them, and my Spanish is pretty good.

10.)  Be aware that everything will probably start 5-10 minutes after it’s supposed to.  Be on time anyways.

11.)  Always carry a raincoat.  At this time of year, it doesn’t matter how sunny it is in the morning, it will rain in the afternoon.

12.)  Taste the ahí before you put it all over your food.  Ahí is a spicy sauce/powder made from hot peppers, but different places will have differing strengths of ahí.  It ranges from warm all the way up to too spicy for even me to handle in any significant quantity.  I’ve already ruined a couple of perfectly good plates of rice by overdoing the ahí.

And that’s about all.  From this list, you can probably get a good idea of the adventures I’ve had over the past couple of days.

Unless something remarkable happens, this is probably the last I’ll post until next Thursday.  We leave Monday at noon for our tour of Guayaquil and Machala, and probably return at some ungodly hour of Wednesday night.  By that point, I expect to be thoroughly sick of travelling (especially since it means two more life-threatening trips through the Andes) and ready to stay put in Cuenca for a while.

¡Hasta luego!

Natalie

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