Richard's Travel Blog

We went somewhere again! Woo hoo! This time, Myung and I went to California. Just two days later, she went to Korea for a couple of weeks to follow up on her post-thyroidectomy and to get worked up for headaches she gets. She passed her thyroid stuff and is doing better on the headaches. Then she came back through SFO and we spent a couple of weeks in the Bay Area and Stockton. She visited her friends and family there but took zero pictures.

I hung out in the East Bay while she was gone, seeing the people I know and going to my old haunts, at least the ones that still exist. That’s been fun every time (well, maybe not the time I got sick and did time in the hospital back in 2007) and it was again. There’s not much to say about it. I did just about everything on my checklist.

When Myung returned from Korea, we went down to the coastal mountains between Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz on the coast. We stayed at a nice airbnb between Felton and Ben Lomond. You’d have to be from the area to know that area. It was Myung’s first time. There are a few coastal redwood parks there, the most famous of which is Big Basin which was the first California State Park. We chilled out and looked at the trees. We have exactly four photos. I might as well show them all. there are a couple of waterfall pictures , but they aren’t good enough to post.

Santa Cruz is close by, so close in fact that Felton and Ben Lomond are basically suburbs of it. Yow! 50 years ago when I first went there, that area was remote, with only a couple of narrow highways into it. Anyway, I took Myung to Santa Cruz. It’s grown up too, of course. 50+ years ago, it was all about surfers. Now it’s many things ‘cuz it’s big, but it has the feel of where to go if you were a surfer or hippie back in the day. There are a lot of Silicon Valley types there, too. Many even commute, which takes about an hour, more during the rush.

The nicest part is along the shoreline. It’s typical of the Northern California coast north of Big Sur. What a nice place to be able to stroll if you live there.

Ice plant flowers all year. It’s invasive, I don’t know where from, but most people like it.

After a few days there we headed back to the Bay Area. Myung has been on Route 1 between Monterrey/Santa Cruz and San Francisco before. It’s strawberry season.

Strawberry farm on the coast with the ocean in the background

We went directly to my niece’s home in San Francisco and had lunch with her sister, Elaine, who came down from near Portland where she lives. Elaine had never met Myung, and had come down mostly just to get to know her a little. With that lunch, the Friday afternoon drive from SF out to Stockton (ugh, the traffic), and the next couple of days in Stockton, she got the chance.

Stockton was good. My brother Bill and his wife Rita still live there. That’s good.Visiting with them and seeing friends of mine there were on the checklist. Nothing exciting, unless you count going to Costco. There’s nothing resembling that in Cuenca, though there is a kind of poor man’s Costco in Guayaquil.

Clockwise from lower left: Myung, my niece Elaine, my sister-in-law Rita, my brother Bill, and me

So, that was about that for our trip. From Stockton, we went back to the East Bay, did some more shopping for things you can’t get back home, go on a plane, and here we are.

There’s a whole long story about what happened while we were gone, but I’ll save it for next time. Until then, be well, all of you.

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.

I left off with Mendocino. From there, most of our time was spent looking at redwoods and other nature, and hanging out at a very comfortable airbnb home in Crescent City

There are several Redwood State and National Parks between Mendocino and Crescent City. We spent one day driving the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwoods and walking among the giants there. There are even three redwoods I know of in NW California which you can drive through. I know. Tacky tourist stuff. But Myung’s never seen anything like trees of this size. For those who don’t know, this tree is alive and well. They don’t live to be 3000 years old for nothing.

I don’t know how much you can say about walks in the forest. I’ll just post some of the better pictures. A couple are from Humboldt and the others are from the Jedediah Smith redwoods near Crescent City.

We really, and I mean really, don’t do hard traveling anymore. In the old days, this trip would have been luxurious and super easy. Now, we just plunk down when we want. Crescent City and the environs, and our airbnb place and the hosts were so nice, we just asked them if we could stay several extra days. No one else had booked with them, so we just stayed there till four days before returning to Cuenca.

For Myung, our airbnb place was the best ever. The hosts were Chinese, only three years in the States. I must say I liked them a lot but could talk much because of their limited English and my nonexistent Chinese. Myung, however, felt right at home. They made us feel at home, too. Plus, we had two big rooms to sleep and hang out in, when we weren’t socializing in the kitchen or hanging out in the huge living room and enjoying the view of their lovely 16 acre property. It really was sweet. Here we are, having dinner together.

That picture was actually taken by their 8 year old boy. Pretty good, eh?

I had never spent any time to speak of in Crescent City. It’s still little and quiet. The supermax prison a few miles north of the city (and about a half mile from our airbnb place) has no effect on the city’s aesthetics. There’s nothing very photo worthy right in town. There’s a city beach, an old lighthouse and a rocky shoreline directly on the west side of town.

I’ve got a few other pictures worth looking at. North of those rocks in the last picture and west of where we stayed is an area called Tolowa Dunes State Park. There aren’t any dunes, really, but sandy grasslands, some hilly areas and a driftwood strewn beach. It’s not exactly remote, but you can pretty much have the place to yourselves.

Then it was time to get back. Myung wanted to go to a Chinese medical clinic in Oakland for a couple of health issues. That place closes at 5 on Saturdays, so we bolted all the way down from Crescent City on that last Saturday. Sunday-Wednesday was shopping and saying goodbye. Wednesday night we took the red-eye to Quito. Thursday we spent an interminable day doing nothing in the wifi-less Quito airport, then took a 7 PM flight to Cuenca. Here we are.

I’ll blog later about all the changes the owners made around here while we were gone. It’s like a new place.

So, that’s about it for now. It might be a while before I get up to the States again, or do anything real exciting. We’re already practically back to our normal life. Until later, be well, all of you.

Banana slug. They can grow up to about a foot long.

We’re baaaack. Myung and I just got back from our six week trip. I spent the whole time in California, while Myung spent a couple of those weeks in Korea. It was a combination getting some stuff done, shopping and visiting friends and family. We pretty much got it all done, then it was time to come home. I ran out of money, anyway. The business and shopping parts aren’t worth relating. Business is business. Shopping was for things we can’t get in Ecuador or are prohibitively expensive. Visiting friends and family was nice, but there isn’t much to say about that. As I think about what to put in this post, I’m thinking it’s going to be mostly pictorial and commentary about what seemed fun and/or  might be interesting, especially to someone who isn’t familiar with Northern California.

As soon as I started thinking about going, I started thinking about having some of the food that isn’t here or is better there. I thought about the restaurants I used to like, and looking forward to eating there again. Our first airbnb place was in Berkeley. Right nearby is a well-known establishment called Brennan’s. We ate our first dinner there and had their famous Fred Flintsone-sized bronto turkey leg and fixin’s. Yeah, I really used to like these, and they’re still good.

We did a lot of eating out. “Sardine Can” is a heckuva name for a restaurant.

As always, food is always on our minds, especially Myung’s. She bought foodstuffs from Korea. Fortunately, most of the Asian things she wanted to bring back is available in Oakland’s Chinatown. There are many Chinese stores there and farmer’s markets are increasingly popular all around the East Bay. Oakland’s are great, with high quality at good prices, especially at the Friday market in Chinatown.

Oh, it’s very Chinese there. But I saw this old busker at another, more yuppie market the next day. I’m told he goes to all of them.

Myung went to Korea for business, shopping and family and friends for two weeks just four days after we got there. I spent the time visiting and having alone time. I took exactly zero pictures, but it was good. Myung took a few photos. Here’s one of her friends.

And here’s one of picturesque places in Korea. Korea is full of lovely settings like this. As you may know, we spent about 9 months there between 2008 and 2010. For a lot of great photos and my thoughts from that time, you can type “Korea” in the search box right above “Archives”.

One of the things we did before going on a road trip up the coast was go to the last San Francisco Giants game of the regular season. As you may also know, I’m a huge San Francisco Giants baseball fan.  The Giants had to win to clinch a wild card playoff spot. They won, but went on to lose in the next round.

I wasn’t only huge fan. This lady beside me was pretty enthusiastic.

Here’s a random shot from the most popular trail in Tilden Park, part of the 120,000 acre (488 sq. km) East Bay Regional Parks. That’s the Golden Gate bridge out there across the bay.

So, up the coast, north of San Francisco, we went. It gets real nice, real fast. It’s such a beautiful coastline, one of the best in the world. I’m not just saying that. I’ve seen a lot of coasts. There are spots, but this coast goes one and on. Most readers of this blog are quite familiar with the sites.

There are plenty of coastal photos coming up. I need to keep this post from getting interminable.

No blog about north of San Francisco would be complete without a picture of the Napa wine country.

There are many cute towns all along the way…

… but the cutest one is Mendocino. If it looks familiar to you, it’s because it used for many TV shows and movies. It’s a lot different than when I first went up there forty-some years ago. The buildings are still there and they haven’t messed with the shoreline, but it’s become like a theme park. There is little small town feel to it now. Plus, it’s gentrified and everything is expensive. Oh well, it’s still a nice place.

In the old days, you didn’t see all these expensive cars. You could also get lunch for under $15. Now the cheapest sandwich to go, off this main street, is $9.

You still can’t beat  the setting. Again, the coastline goes on and on like this. these next three places are within a couple hundred meters from that main street downtown.

Staying overnight in one of the inns in town is prohibitively expensive for us, so we stayed in a cabin in the forest. That was really mellow. Here’s the road to it.

Here’s the place.

There was even wifi out in the chairs near the big house where the owner of the cabin lives.

A short walk from the cabin through the trees brings you to Big River, which comes out in Mendocino.

We stayed there three nights.

Going up the coast, before you get to Mendocino, there’s Fort Ross State Park. Fort Ross was a Russian settlement and trading post when Russia had a presence along the coast. They pulled out of Fort Ross in 1827 and eventually all of North America when they sold Alaska to the US in 1867, but the buildings here remained. Obviously, it’s totally restored, but you get a glimpse of how they lived.

I’ve always found that place interesting.

Anyway, that part of California inland is pretty dense trees for the most part. You get the idea from the Big River picture. There really aren’t many roads through there, even. The more north you go, the more forested it becomes. Finally, you get to the Humboldt Redwood State and National Forests.

Y’know, this post is getting too long. I need to break it up. I’m going to publish it up to here and do more later. See ya.

It’s been awhile, again. I’ve finished my radiation and all went well. I barely had any side effects and feel normal except for the hormonal changes due to the androgen deprivation injections. I’m pretty used to them now. No big deal.

I’m going to celebrate life by going to N. California with Myung from Sept 16-Oct 18. We’ll be there together till Sept 11. Then Myung is going to Korea till Sept 26. When she gets back, we’re going on a little road trip up the coast for a while. We’ll be doing some shopping for things that cost a fortune in Ecuador, taking care of some business, and visiting people during the rest of the time we’re here. While she’s in Korea, I don’t think I’ll be too busy. I’m really looking forward to getting out of Dodge.

It’s not like we haven’t had the time to get out of town. We’ve just been content to stay around here. As I’ve said many times, we’re a little jaded, having seen so much of the world, and got so burned out traveling all those years that we’re fine being homebodies.

Myung is a little busy two to four days a week. She’s been selling Korean food by advertising once a week on the local internet bulletin board for gringos, GringoPost. Her business is actually kind of taking off. Her prices are lower and the quality is better than from the Asian restaurants in Cuenca. Word is spreading fast. Soon, she’s going to have to get a bigger kitchen and/or some help besides what little I’m qualified to do.

Unless you want to look at pictures of sushi and the dog, I find only two pics taken in the last two months. One is up a street downtown toward the domes of the cathedral. the other is of the domes, which Myung took one day from a usually closed courtyard beside the cathedral was open.

I’m going to fire this off. We’ll see some of you when we get to California.

Be well, all of you.

Not a lot going on around here, but here’s the news.

I’m about halfway through my 39 radiation treatments. So far, so good. I’m starting to have some minor side effects, but it’s fine. The side effects are supposed to start some time around now. I’m thinking every day there’s nothing is a gift. I’d report more if there was something to report, but there isn’t.

I’m not doing much. Myung has just started this week trying to sell kimbap and California rolls.

One of her first customers used to go to Korea frequently on business. He wants some kimchi and a couple of other Korean specialties which are unavailable here, so maybe Myung will make that for him and, presumably, others. Maybe. This just started this week, so who knows what will happen.

Other than that, there’s nothing new going on right now. I decided to reward myself for going through this treatment with a trip to the States. We’ll go up on Sept 5. The  next weekend, Myung will go to Korea to visit her family and friends for a couple of weeks while I stay in California. Then the plan is too drive round and be tourists for about three weeks, then return home on October 18.

Here is where I normally use photos to give me something to talk about. Would you  believe I only have photos of kimbap and the dog?. Altogether, there are maybe a dozen photos since the post before last. Well, like I said, there isn’t a lot going on.

Gotta put something…   Here’s Luna. It’s her or the kimbap.

Be well, all of you.

We’ve been getting emails asking if we are okay, if the earthquake affected us. We and everyone else in Cuenca are fine. The quake was at least 300 km from here, up on the north coast, and only rattled everything here. In fact, I was out walking the dog when it happened, and didn’t feel it. Myung told me about it when I got home.

I’ve gotten a couple of “Wazzup?” emails. It’s been a while, so here’s wazzup.

Not much. No new news about my prostate cancer. I started the androgen deprivation therapy and am told radiation will start around the end of the month or early May. The ADT ain’t nothin’, except I sort of get hot flashes and lost my sex drive, which was to be expected. That’s about it on that.

Are we getting to the age where health talk is wazzup? Yuk. No pictures, unless sonograms and CT scans count, and I’m not going to try to post those.

As usual, I’m not that busy. I’m glad baseball season has begun. I’m watching games. Myung and I still walk all over town. The last few days there has been a fair at several locations in the center and along the river, which gives us a reason to walk, other than wandering. It’s much like the 3 de Noviembre fair last fall. This one is the 12 de Abril feria, commemorating Cuenca’s founding in 1557.

Most of what goes on is vendors selling stuff. The government promotes it as a way to generate traffic for the artisans. There are lots of vendors selling factory stuff, too. Some of it is Chinese total rubbish. There’s food, too. Some is local fare. There’s a little of everything. Myung sold sushi and kimbap at the 3 de Noviembre fair. You saw those pics. Here are a few of one of the parades.

For sure, not everything is traditional. This was a booming electronic rock music show under the Broken Bridge.

Maybe you remember, a friend of my friend, Mary, visited with us in Antigua a couple of years ago. Her name’s Susan. She still travels the world several months of the year, looking for artisan stuff to sell back in the Bay Area. She came to Cuenca for a while and we hung out for several days. It was very nice to have her around.

Unfortunately, artisan stuff around Cuenca isn’t much. The best city for that is Otovalo, which is back up north near Cotacachi. A lot of the crafts that are here are from Otovalo, in fact, so Susan was a little disappointed in that regard. We tried to find stuff in nearby Gualaceo, Chordeleg and Paute. Despite them being mentioned in the guides as places where crafts can be bought, there was virtually nothing doin’. Oh well.

There was some kind of event in either Chordeleg or Gualaceo, I forget. A couple of these pictures are Susan’s.

This one man band was in Paute.

I said I wasn’t that busy. Myung’s pretty active though. She’s got a garden out front. She’s got four or five kinds of lettuce, beets, kale, radishes, spinach, several herbs and I’m forgetting something.

Our eating experience is better than ever.

I think that’s going to do it for now. I’ll be in touch. Be well, all of you.

I’ve had a high PSA for about 12 years and had 4 biopsies between 2004 and 2011, all negative. I’ve known I have an enlarged prostate for that long. It was getting harder to pee, so I went in and asked for a transurethal resection of the prostate (TURP). The urologist said I needed another biopsy because of over 4 years since the last one. I did that, even though he said after so many other negatives the chances of having cancer was about 3%. Besides, my PSA, which I continued to check, had gone up to 43 from 22 in two years sincce my last check. Lo and behold, I finally do indeed have prostate cancer. When I blogged the time before last, that TURP was the procedure I thought I was going to have.

Without getting into the minutia of the considerations in deciding a treatment plan, in short, my type and stage of cancer has a high probability of cure but is beyond “watchful waiting”. It was a little agonizing to decide on a prostatectomy vs androgen deprivation therapy (ADP) and radiation. ADP and surgery has long been considered the way to go, but recent studies show surgery followed by radiation if necessary might be better. Again in short, I chose the ADP and radiation. Neither way is inviting, but I studied hard about it and got three other opinions plus that of my niece who is a highly respected urological oncology surgeon.

I start on ADP tomorrow. I get an injection every three months. In two months, I get a blood test. If my testosterone is down enough, I start radiation 5 times a week for about two months. Then ADP continues for about two years.

How do I feel about all this? Well, I think I’m fine. I was shocked at first, and worried. Then I lost some sleep trying to decide which treatment to have. Now that I’ve decided, I feel better. I’m that way, not one to second guess myself or regret a decision I tried to make as best I could. I’m going to just go forward from here and be mindful of how lucky I am in general. Myung and I are going out for pizza tonight. I’m a little more conscious during my bites than before. How lucky we are to be able to have pizza.

Be well, all of you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It’s been a couple of months again, I know. But not a lot has been going on again. That picture of us is from Myung’s birthday last month. We went out to Sole’s restaurant. I let it out that it was her birthday, so they all were there.

They or one of the cooks, I don’t know, made her a cake. They don’t know her age, hence the question mark. I didn’t know you could get a question mark candle.

Feliz Cumpeanos Any, Happy birthday Annie. Myung goes by Annie here.

Actually, something big is going on with me. I got prostate cancer. (No photos) It’s low grade and if I get a prostatectomy I have a 99% chance of dying of something else. At this time, I plan to get one. I’m not prone to dramatics, so I’m going to let it go at that till the end of next month when I make a final decision whether to get it done here for free or in Korea where I’d have to pay. It wouldn’t be too expensive because I can get into Korea’s health care system. The health care in Korea is much better. It’s kind of  long story which I’ll tell next month.

Whew, I’m glad I got that announcement out of the way. Now on with my life.

I’ve got lots of photos of fairs in Cuenca. The first bunch is of the big fair for Cuenca’s independence. As you might know, especially if you’ve read my little histories, after Napoleon defeated Spain, the Spanish empire crumbled. The vice royalties and other entities in the New World fell like dominoes to Bolivar, Sucre and the others. Cuenca’s turn was Nov 3, 1820. We happen to live on 3 de Noviembre Lane, off of the gravel and pothole end of 3 de Noviembre Avenue. This fair was all along the renovated stretch of Avenida 3 de Noviembre. You’ve seen lots of pictures along the Tomebamba River. In this one, you can see some of the tents the government set up for vendors for a fee along the river. 

While I’m being historical, Tomebamba was the name of the northern Inca administrative center where Cuenca is now. The ruins which you’ve seen in this blog are all that’s left of that after the Spanish used the stones to build Cuenca. Actually, the Spanish used squat. They used Canari/Inca slaves to build early Cuenca. Let’s not go into the whole thing. Almost 500 years later, here Myung and I are, retired in modern Ecuador, going to thoroughly modern fairs along the river.

Well, maybe not everyone at the stalls is thoroughly modern. I’m thinking, these Kichwa speaking people don’t even want to be thoroughly modern.

Here is Myung on the Broken Bridge and a view down the street below…

… and a couple more down on the street.

As long as I’m posting fair pictures, I’m going to skip to fair this month. Myung decided to make and sell sushi and kimbap. She worked hard to keep up with the demand…

Homemade in our little home was a logistical challenge.

… and made a couple hundred dollars profit. By Ecuador standards, that’s a huge success.

The government entity that promotes these events even made a “Comida Coreana” sign, provided the tablecloths and some Christmas decorations

We were both pretty glad when it was over. The organizer wanted Myung to sign up for another in April. She passed on that for now, but gave out her phone number to many people. She may do some business, the details of which are nowhere near decided.

One difficulty is getting Asian food here. Most of the quality product can be found in Quito, 8 hours away. We went to Guayaquil, the biggest city in Ecuador and only 4 hours away, in an attempt to see if anything was available there. There isn’t, but we got to see Guayaquil for the first time. Everyone says it’s a fairly undesirable port city. They are sort of right, but it didn’t seem as bad as many cities we’ve been to. Shoot, it’s definitely way better than some.

The market area where Chinese shops are has no Chinese food, much less Korean, and it’s not photo worthy. So let’s go to the most popular “tourist area”, if you could call it that. That area is along the River Guayas waterfront. There’s a developed promenade for a couple of kilometers called the malecon, as such areas are often called n Latin America.

At the end of the malecon is a cute, upscale neighborhood.

Of course, there is a plaza and a cathedral.

From Lonely Planet and what the tourist-oriented hostal guys told us, that really is about it for Guayaquil. At least the weather was nice. It could have been very  hot and sticky. No mosquitoes either, which surprised me. There are lots of events, if you live there, but for most people it’s good for shopping (for stuff not Asian) and as a transportation hub. For that it’s really good. The airport is right near the bus station, not on the outskirts of town like in Quito.  Many international flights are to and from there at about the same price as Quito.
Movin’ right along, we discovered the zoo in Cuenca is actually quite nice. I knew there was one, but assumed it was not good. This one is up in the hills bordering Cuenca on the south.

View of Cuenca from the zoo.

The paths are all up and down and hidden in the trees. That chain link fencing separates you from the animals.

Some areas are more open.

The zoo is a couple hundred more meters above Cuenca. Gotta take a break or three walking around there.

Animal photos.

These Galapagos tortoises are big.

So are these pythons.

and crocs.

Maybe I should have taken photos of the lions. In Africa, we never got closer than 3 meters. At the zoo, you can be just on the other side of the chain link fence. I guess I’m a little jaded from the Africa experience. No fences there.

As far as pictures go, I’ve only uploaded these random shots in Cuenca.

People sitting on the curb

At the Christmas concert in Todos Santos church.

We had a low key Christmas, as we usually do. We went to a party and a couple of concerts, and went out to eat a couple of times. That’s about it. After years on the road and in China which barely does Christmas, we are kind of out of it.

So, again, Happy Holidays. See you next year.