Cuenca High Life

by Tom McNaughton The second round of the Cuenca Cup was played on October 27th. It was a tough crowd that night. It started with TC Tahoe warming them up with a few card tricks and sleight-of-hand moves that left everyone with jaws hanging. No one knows TC’s real name, but after... [More]

by Susan Schenck There’s a new American-owned clothes and artesanos store attached to the new restaurant San Sebas. Its contents drew me in: 100% cotton shirts, some tie dyed, for only $21. I’m always a sucker for tie dye and batik, and these shirts would cost double that here ha... [More]

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa celebrated his fifth year in office, Friday night, January 13, in Cuenca. To mark the occasion, supporters threw a party in Alejandro Serrano Aguilar football stadium. Among the 25,000 in attendance were 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú and s... [More]

Cuenca’s holiday festivities continued Friday night as a crowd estimated at 25,000 turned out to observe and participate in the annual Day of the Innocents before rains chased most spectators away. The event, highlighted by a parade and performances on Av. Huayna Capac as thousands ... [More]

A dozen coins tumbled away from the shoes of the elderly white-haired man who was standing on a corner in Cuenca, Ecuador. Cuenca is a beautiful city in the southern part of the country that is now a magnet for expatriates looking for a place to retire outside the United States. "Let me h... [More]

by Susan Schenck Sometimes, just once in a while, I miss some things I could easily find in California, land of health products. One of the products I couldn't find for the longest time was coconut oil/butter—a very healthful food. As I write in my book The Live Foo... [More]

by Mark Raderstorf Thanksgiving 2011 in Cuenca began with a beautiful sunny day -- the perfect weather for the Turkey Trot scheduled for 9 a.m. We met at the starting point, Otorongo Plaza, along the Rio Tomebamba. More than 50 people showed for this inaugural event, ready for some exercise ... [More]

An innovative Ecuadorean plan to leave more than 900 million barrels of crude oil untapped and beneath a pristine nature reserve, in exchange for international donations, has survived its first deadline, Ivonne Baki, the project coordinator told The Miami Herald. The Yasuní-ITT initia... [More]

by Susan Schenck Cuenca has a new restaurant serving raw gourmet dishes! Nectar, which opened on October 28, is a vegetarian tea house and gallery located on Benigno Malo 10-42 between Gran Columbia and Mariscal Lamar (on the second floor) and is open from noon to 6 p.m Tuesday through... [More]

By Anne Carr Thanks to the late and formidable Steve Jobs, again…it’s possible to use your iphone or ipad and get immediate helpful hints on how to have a little understanding and consequently some strategies to negotiate not just the language but also a culture different from o... [More]

by Susan Schenck One of the things that makes Ecuador stand out as a favorite place for expats is the variety of ways in which one can obtain residency (pension, investment, property) and visas (tourist, student, work, professional, volunteer, and a few others). But what happens if you ... [More]

Save your appetite for noon on Sunday afternoon.  That’s when the doors open on Cuenca’s 17th Annual International Food Fair at the Mall del Rio Convention Center. In addition to Ecuadorian comida tipica, the fair will feature food from Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerlan... [More]

by Susan Schenck One of the American traditions we often cut back on when we move to Cuenca is that of shopping marathons. In San Diego, I sometimes shopped for an hour and a half just to unwind from the long week’s workload. I had to get my daily walking in anyhow, so if I wasn’... [More]

Get ready to rumble! The artisans are coming! For seven days, beginning Mon., Oct. 31, Cuenca will become Ecuador’s party central as the city celebrates the 191st anniverary of its independence from Spain. Although the nightly concerts and fireworks shows will make the most ... [More]

Seven of the 14 most violent countries in the world are in Latin America, according to the second edition of  the Global Burden of Armed Violence, a book released last week by the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development. The Geneva group, launched in 2008, reports that &ldqu... [More]

by Susan Schenck The Foundation for the Service of the Illness of Cancer (FASEC), the Cancer Foundation here in Cuenca, is funded and operated primarily by volunteers. Since 1983, FASEC has housed 13,546 patients who couldn’t afford to stay in the hospital while receiving cancer treatm... [More]

Ecuador was the unexpected recipient of U.S. trade preferences last week when Congress approved free trade agreements for Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Ecuador´s trade preference was granted through July 2013, in a rider to the legislation, based on the Andean Nations Trade Preferences A... [More]

by Susan Schenk It seems like yesterday. The close friend of a friend of mine was dying of AIDS and he related to me the agony of being on his deathbed. “At that point, I think I would just call for Dr. Kevorkian,” I remarked. “No, you’d be so su... [More]

Living with one's parents until age 30 is not appealing to most North Americans. At 18, many teenagers say goodbye and leave the nest. Suddenly, a new life starts away from family, friends and everything one has known until that point. This is a coming-of-age moment that most U.S. and Canadian... [More]

by Susan Schenck From Cuenca, one of the most astounding day trips is to Giron. Take a bus from Terminal Terreste at 9 a.m. and about every 15 to 30 minutes after that. It costs one hour and one dollar. Once there, you can visit the museum in town. For five dollars, take a cab up t... [More]

It's the sort of thing most people fantasize about while stuck in yet-another rush-hour back-up: chucking it all and moving to a tropical country. For Barb and John Porter, it's more than fantasy -- come October, the Burnaby couple will be in their new home in Ecuador, South America,... [More]

Ecuador has become the latest testing ground for the attempt to use higher education to reverse decades of racial and social inequality through the country's prohibition, following a new constitution in 2008, of fees for all public education (including public universities). Equity was th... [More]

by Susan Schenck I neither eat nor recommend eating grains. They're not our natural foods, they're acidic, we didn’t evolve eating them, and most wreak havoc on our health. They're promoted as healthy by governments only because they're cheap food for the masses. ... [More]

The National Transportation Agency and national police arrested a dozen drivers of 7- and 8-passenger vans on Friday, claiming they were operating without proper licensing and unfairly competing with bus companies. The arrests were made in Cuenca and Guayaquil. In the Cuenca area, vans takin... [More]

By Edd Staton Last Saturday, I visited my dermatologist to have a few troublesome spots frozen on my head. Such is the downside of my grooming choice. If you've never had this done, it's a simple procedure with liquid nitrogen in an aerosol container that removes possible pre-c... [More]