More living logistics ironed out today. Seems like I’ve been consumed with this, but then we’ve only been here a week and our current roof over the head ends the day after tomorrow. It’s pretty much boiled down to the following, with the final confirmation on the last and most important long term option nailed down tomorrow.
Out of here on the 7th. It’s been fun being so close to the Tomebamba. The river at night lulls one to sleep and whispers all sorts of secrets about the andes and the civilizations that have lived here since 8000 BC. Most of which is translated into western dream images like the acting lessons from Robert Downing Jr. to prepare us for an undercover assignment a few days ago. Somewhere in those images is probably the secret location of the lost gold of El Dorado, for which Cuenca is allegedly a prime candidate.
January 7th to January 16th - moving uptown in the heart of “el centro” for 10 days, until we are bumped by a prior reservation and then back until February 16th or so.
February 16th - if things go well tomorrow, we move into our “permanent” quarters. A very suite 1 bedroom, king size bed, kitchen, living room, all utilities, cable internet, flat screen TV with DirectTV (which we’ll probably only use to cast netflix and amazon) for $720 a month. A bit pricey here, but pretty amazing, smack in the middle of downtown in a renovated colonial building with interior courtyard and 24 hour security. Not too shabby. We looked at a similar offering but the layout didn’t have the right feng-shui for us.
Chatted with a person over facebook that lives here and teaches Karate, mostly using google translate. Not really sure whether I want to get back into the martial arts or whether I’m ready to close that chapter of life and move into some old fart regime like qigong and tai-chi. May check out a wing chun place near here tonight while I mull over this.