Cuenca High Life

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]

One of Latin America’s most colorful -- and bizarre -- traditions is the year-end burning of the dummies. When the clock ticks over to 2012 on Saturday night, an observer with a good vantage point in Cuenca will behold an other-worldly sight of thousands of burning d... [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]

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]

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]

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]

The Coopera, an organic-agriculture, financial-services, and social-support cooperative based in San Joaquin, a village on the western outskirts of Cuenca, was established in January 2004 by eight founding members with a total investment of less than $50 (each contributed $6). Today, it has more t... [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]

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]

Among the first sights noticed by newcomers to Cuenca, along with the billowing white clouds, the rolling green hills, and the red-tile roofs, are the big blue buses that spew black fumes into the otherwise colorless alpine air. Hundreds of them bomb around town, from roughly 5:45 a.m. till ... [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]

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]

The rock-bottom cost of living in Ecuador, where retirees can live comfortably on less than the average U.S. Social Security payment, has seen the country remain firmly at the top of International Living's annual Global Retirement Index for the third successive year. When putting togethe... [More]

Ecuador sees the loans it has agreed to with China as "good news" because they are long term, and all that is required in return is "oil, and not the horrendous adjustments imposed by the IMF [International Monetary Fund]," left-wing Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told anal... [More]

While Cuenca's real estate market continues to show strong growth, the inflow of immigrants from North American is only a small part of the reason why. "What's driving the local market is the return of Ecuadorians from overseas to live in Cuenca, or who are investing now and pla... [More]

With all the talk about gringos in Cuenca, the question arises, what exactly does the term "gringo" mean? And where might it come from? "Gringo" is a demonym, which has nothing to do with demons. Rather, it's Greek for the name (nym) of a populace (demos), a linguisti... [More]

The Fundación para la Sobrevivencia del Pueblo Cofán (FSC) and its US-based branch The Cofan Survival Fund have launched a new fundraising campaign, "The Campaign for 5000" to support the one-of-a-kind Cofán Ranger Park Guard program. The Cofan Ranger Park Guard Prog... [More]

If this is southern Ecuador´s dry season, why are we getting so much rain? And why is it so cold? According to the experts, there are two explanations. The first is the strong La Niña that has raised Pacific seawater temperatures by two to three degress.  Ironcially, the ph... [More]

Although it has been called the "Gringo invasion" in newspaper and web articles, Cuenca's influx of foreign residents hardly represents the action of conquering hordes. There is, however, no denying the city's growing popularity among foreigners looking for a new home. Cuen... [More]

Hundreds of Latin American indigenous rights activists gathered in Cuenca, June 17 to June 23, to disucss and plan strategies to defend water rights. According to organizers, the Continental Conference in Defense of Water and Mother Earth, was intended as an act of resistance against develop... [More]

Rachel Zeigler is the representative from American Citizens Services (ACS) for the district that includes Cuenca. She's based at the U.S. Consulate in Guayaquil, a division of the U.S. State Department. She visited Cuenca a few weeks ago and held a lunchtime meeting at California Kitchen. It a... [More]

Reposted report from 2010 Setenario celebration. The 2011 edition kicks off Thursday, June 23. Check local newspapers for events schedule. “In the U.S., this would be illegal,” John Schnelling told a friend standing next to him Thursday night in Cuenca’s Calderon ... [More]

The federal government has announced that Cuenca will recieve $4.1 million to draw up final engineering plans for the city´s proposed light rail system. Carla Herman, working with a group of French engineers who have completed preliminary work on the project, said the funding represent... [More]

The Miami Herald International Edition has announced plans to increase news coverage in Cuenca and southern Ecuador. The newspaper also plans a home-delivery subscription drive, targeting Cuenca´s English-speaking expat population. Owned and operated by Herald International Media ... [More]