Siesta, continued

Not that it was planned that way, but today, by necissito had to be another siesta day.  This morning I woke up with a queazy stomach.  While I made an effort to get out and see how it would go, it didn't go well.  Since the camera got a break today I thought we'd share with you some pictures of our accommodations from this trip.  

In Quito, as you know, we stayed at a bed and breakfast by the name of La Casa Amarilla (The Yellow House).  I've already shared with you how well the owner, Jenny took care of us, but I didn't give you many pictures of her beautiful house.  So here ya go...

In the Quito Airport we saw this large mural of Ecuador's 2014 tourism promotion, "All You Need is Ecuador".

When we arrived in Cuenca we were greeted at the airport by Beverly.  We are renting one of Bev's apartments for our 11 days in Cuenca.  The apartment is very tastefully and colorfully decorated in an Ecuadorian theme.  Bev left nothing for want and simply thought of everything in setting up the apartment.  We have a full kitchen, washer and dryer, flat screen with Direct TV and a library of close to 300 movies to watch on the DVD, which has come in handy during our siestas.  We even have a hot water heater, which is a big luxury in Ecuador as most hot water in showers is commonly provided by some kind of electric heating device attached to the shower head - no thanks!  We are only one block from the center of the city, which makes this place very convenient for walking most anywhere we want to go.  Anyway, he's a few pictures of our home for our 11 days in Cuenca.

The first thing that got scratched today was our trip to Waffles de Belgica.  Oh well, maybe tomorrow.  Instead we stopped in Maria's Aleman (German) Bakery, a place that we had stumbled into yesterday afternoon on a little walk and were determined to make it back there, soon.  So we thought it might help for me to eat some bread and where else could we get any better.  We bought a ham and cheese sandwich, a pretzel and a Sprite for $2.85.  We walked  a couple of blocks down to Parque Calderon and did some people watching before returning back to the apartment out of necessity. ;)

We got back out for a bit this afternoon and walked down to the Mansion Alcazar and made dinner reservations for Saturday night.  A single night's stay in the hotel is $200, which is likely the highest priced hotel in Cuenca.  But it is a beautiful property.  We'll take pictures and give you a good report of our dinner Saturday night.

By now it was getting late in the afternoon and becoming quite obvious we were going to have to scratch our dinner plans at Roux Bar and Bistro.  The owners are American expats from South Carolina and they host a "Blues and BBQ Night" on Thursday evenings.  We were looking very forward to it, but I just hadn't fully recovered.  We decided to stop back by Maria's and pick up sandwiches for the evening and pastries for tomorrow morning.  We bought a large and a regular size Ham and Cheese sandwich on the freshly baked German bread, a peach danish, a strawberry and peach danish, a large powdered doughnut with raspberry and blackberry jam, a large chocolate and cinnamon roll and a small loaf of chocolate chip bread made with cottage cheese, all for $10.40!  (Pardon the poor picture quality, these were taken with my phone)

So we turned on the TV and had our sandwiches for dinner and started watching movies.

Sometimes you just have to accept reality and live for another day.  Hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow feeling like a new man.

However, on a positive note, today wasn't a total loss.  Jana had two different people just give her small gifts completely out of the blue.  The first was a small change holder given to her by a very nice man who owns a leather shop where I purchased a new bi-fold wallet for $5.  Jana had met him last night on her way back from the small tienda next door to our apartment building.  His name is Marcello and he lives in the same building where we are staying.  As they chatted he told her about his shop just a block down the street.  So we stopped in to say hello this morning.  

Her next gift was given to her by a nice young man who began chatting with us while we were buying our dinner and pastries at Maria's Bakery.  He gave her a gift of chocolatte  from a special region south of Cuenca.  We had it this evening as a palate cleanser after our sandwiches.  That's just another couple of examples of how friendly the people here are, not only each other, but also to visitors to their fine city.

Hasta Lego!