MORE rain, NEW friends, WALK along the river.

We've been busy this past week and it looks like more of the same next week. We have enjoyed meeting several new couples, some closer to making a decision on whether & where to move, some a few years out but on the same exploratory trip.

We've continue doing a lot of walking, at least for us. We aren't up to the 10k steps a day mark but doing way more than we did during our RV ife in the US. It feels good and having such a great city to walk in as well as several beautiful rivers to walk along, definitely helps.

So here's a synopsis of our week. We started out by meeting up with new friends, Heidi and Steve (Risa and Jerry on Facebook). We had lunch at Don Colon's and really enjoyed our time with them. They were supposed to meet other expat friends, Stephen and Nancy, at Tutto Fredo at two. Well, a few minutes after, Nancy and Steve show up at Don Colon. They knew where to find them. Great folks, still probably a year or two away from making any major changes.

We took off walking, made a bank deposit, walked some more, and I just had to snap this shot - gorgeous sunny day.

Then we decided to stop for ice cream... Ice cream (helado) is very popular here but we haven't indulged very often. We recently found La Fornace and tried the ice cream there. Our favorite is Malaga or Rum Raisin. It's sort of like butter pecan with sweet raisins in place of the pecans.

Oh, did I mention that it cost $1 each (cone or cup)?

We continued walking, deciding we needed a cup of coffee, we stopped at a little cafe we had passed before (the coffee smell was delicious) but never tried. Well, the coffee was wonderful, the price good at $1 (as most places are) and it was a good spot to wait out the torrential rain that arrived.

 

We were close to our bus stop and as we waited we noticed this adorable little firefighter costume in the shop across the street. Sorry the pic is so blurry!

Two days later we met up with another couple who were from Colorado Springs, John and Chris. We met at Fabiano's and spent more then five hours chatting, then made plans to meet at Popacuchu next week. Wonderful couple who have spent the last two+ months visiting the coast - we even discovered some mutual friends. They visited our apartment the next morning and we chatted for two hours...needless to say, we really hope they choose Cuenca when they make the final move. Of course, so do all the folks on the coast that they've met. LOL!

After they left, went for a walk up Ordoñez Lazo. We walked up to a local coffee shop that we had heard about, Coffee Brown. We will be back for sure. The food was DELICIOUS and the coffee was good. I had a turkey with passionfruit sandwich (the bread was amazing, not at all dry) and Stu had a chicken salad pita sandwich. While we were there, our visa facilitator, Maite Duran, dropped in and joined us. We had a wonderful chat. Oh, almost forgot to take the food photos. We will be back....

Headed back home, we opted for a walk along the river. It was a nice, sunny day and I grabbed a few shots of the turbulant water, churning from all the recent rains.

Remember we mentioned how big the trees are along the rivers?

I even shot a video of the lady washing her clothes as well as one of the rushing river. Hope these links work, just click the photo and you should be taken to our SmugMug gallery to see the videos. The clothes washing is the first one, the river is the second.

Ahhh, the grand adventure continues. Life is good!