My life’s so sedentary now that it hardly seems right to call this “Richard’s Travel Blog”. Myung and I are just retired people, like thousands here in Cuenca, living the simple life with our daily routines. If you don’t go anywhere, how can this be a travel blog? I could have morphed it into a kind of Facebook page, but I don’t even use Facebook and I didn’t want to get started down that road.
What’s been up for the last year? Well, if you read previous posts, nothing much has changed. We live in the same place, we do this and that around town, the dog in fine, Myung’s garden is fine, Myung is basically over the weirdness she experienced getting her Synthroid dosage right after her thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer, and I’m about 3 years out on my prostate cancer and all tests are good on that front.
Like all people who have been through several life changes during their long lives, I feel like my past lives are behind me. For me, my travelling life is a past life, not that I couldn’t do it again and Cuenca would become a past life. If I did do it again, I doubt I would be setting out feeling like much of my life is ahead of me and all options are on the table. It would be for a finite time, probably, and be more of a trip. I think there is a good chance I will just stay here in Cuenca. I’m fine here.
Our only significant trip out of town since the last post was a couple of weeks in Medellin. We got a little stir crazy and went there for two weeks. People said it was good so we just went.
Medellin is more and more becoming a major expat city, ever since the drug trafficking scene has mellowed out. Shoot, Pablo Escobar’s mansion is a tourist stop now. (We didn’t go there.) It has a lot of the things many expats like. It’s quite modern compared to anywhere in Ecuador. You can buy things you can’t buy here, or at least cost a fortune here. Things work. (What a concept) The roads, streets and public transportation are very good. The restaurants are good. Colombian food is good. The weather is “eternal spring”, and the smog is not too bad. I can totally see why it’s popular, though I like quiet, clean, slow Cuenca. Also, when I say the food is good in Medellin, it’s important to note that the farmers markets like here barely exist there. Medellin, like most developed cities, is a supermarket kind of place, with American type supermarkets where most people get their food. At this point, that alone would stop me from living there. It’s also not “cute”. Cuenca is cute, with it’s brick and cobblestone streets, old architecture and old ways. Medellin is “big city” all the way.
What did we do? We rented an airbnb-like apartment in a 16 story high rise (no 16 story buildings in Cuenca). We made probably most of out meals there, but went out a lot ‘cuz it’s good. We went out looking at whatever. There isn’t really a lot to see there, even though it’s old and has 2.4 million people. We took some pictures.
Here’s the city as it looks from our apartment windows.
View to the west from our living room window
View to the north from out bedroom window
View to the northeast from out bedroom window
I said we went out looking at whatever. Going places is easy in Medellin. Besides many buses, there is a tram system, a overhead light rail system and a gondola system for going up the hillsides. All of it is integrated, easy to use and cheap. The gondolas have greatly improved the lives of poorer people who live in the poorer neighborhoods up the hillsides. They used to have poor services and bad winding streets without bus service so they couldn’t get to a good job. Now the people near this great public transportation aren’t isolated from opportunity.
One area even has escalators.
Escaleras
That area has much wall art and is a tourist destination.
Want pictures of food?
Paella
Big steak kabob, salmon and salad
There is a central square. It ain’t much. The cathedral is homely.
Colombia’s most famous artist was Fernando Butero. You saw some of his work in my first post from Colombia back in 2014. There are sculptures of his in the plaza.
That’s going to be it for Medellin. We spent time in the great parks, but don’t have pictures. You’ll have to take my word for that.
We’re going to California from April 12 to May 9. From April 14 to April 28 Myung is going to Korea, then she’ll rejoin me. Another break in the “action” here in the span of 4 months. Wow. I’ll blog again after that.
Until then, be well all of you.