David Morrill

By David Morrill On September 10, 1783, Cuenca resident Melchor del Valle was convicted by the Spanish Royal Court of murdering his brother Sylvester. The sentence: “Two hundred lashes in the public square, then hanging on the gallows until death.” The court further ordered that, when the body was removed from the gallows, it was...
By David Morrill and Deke Castleman Most foreign visitors start their first tour of Cuenca at Parque Calderón and many expats pass through the park on a daily basis. Despite the recent restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the park remains full of people, the heart and soul of the city. Parque Calderón has an...
One of the more curious subspecies of Ecuador expat is the small but noisy contingent that is utterly obsessed with the price of things; more specifically, they are obsessed with the notion that they are being ripped off, not only by Ecuadorians, but by other expats who are complicit in the rip-off. It almost doesn’t...
For all the prophecies of doom about the outcome of Sunday’s election, the changes that will follow are likely to be relatively minor no matter who wins. Most of the dire forecasts come from right-wing and centrist editorialists and commentators. At their most restrained, they claim that a Andres Arauz victory will mean a return...
By Deke Castleman and Sylvan Hardy We’re all Gary’s children. Gringos lived and worked in Ecuador long before Gary and Merri Scott showed up in 1995, but the Scotts, almost single-handedly, put Ecuador on the radar screens of thousands of pilgrims to the Middle of the World. Almost all Cuenca expats can trace their knowledge...
By David Morrill On March 26, local news media reported the first bodies on the sidewalks of Guayaquil. Within the days, the international media, including the New York Times, the Guardian and the Washington Post were in town to share the lurid images with the world, revealing, they said, what impoverished Latin American countries had...
By Alice Residents of the historic district have a new grocery shopping option. SuperAki, which is part of the company that owns Supermaxi, opened in November a full month ahead of schedule –won’t wonders never cease!– at the corner of Arizaga and Tarqui. For those who live in the historic district and prefer to shop...
Editor’s note: This post has nothing to do with Ecuador, Cuenca or expatriatism. It is about one writer’s obsession with the man who courted his great-great-grandmother during the U.S. Civil War. It appeared originally as a syndicated newspaper column about 20 years ago. When I make the two-hour trip from my home in Tallahassee to...
By David Morrill No one knows exactly when the guitar-making tradition began in San Bartolomé, a picturesque village 20 miles east of Cuenca. Local historians agree, however, that it dates to the Spanish colonial era, at least 200 years ago, and many of the area’s guitar makers can trace their own family businesses back 100...
By David Morrill As an Ecuadorian court grapples with a U.S. extradition request for fugitive Paul Ceglia, a bizarre tale is emerging of the man prosecutors claim tried to defraud Mark Zuckerberg out of ownership of Facebook. A Russian expat couple tells how they worked with Ceglia on computer software and hardware projects until they...
By David Morrill and Deke Castleman What do U.S. expats think about using the U.S. dollar in Ecuador? Not much, frankly, although it’s hard to deny that it makes life easier. We don’t have to worry about exchange rates or go through the hassle of trading dollars for a local currency, like expats in other...
By David Morrill Gerard, coordinator of Cuenca’s English-speaking Alcoholics Anonymous group, recalls standing on the second-floor balcony of the AA meeting room on Presidente Borrero on a Friday afternoon several years ago. Across the street, on the balcony of Zoe Bar & Lounge, two Gringo Night revelers raised their cocktail glasses in salute. “I’ll never...

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The Cuenca Dispatch

Week of March 24

“They are pressuring me to resign so they can remove me from office,” denounced Verónica Abad, Vice President of the Republic.

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Ecuador Navigates Economic Challenges with IMF Agreement Looming.

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“Since when does thinking differently mean being a traitor?” Pierina Correa questions in reference to the Tourism Law.

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