we didn’t get around much yesterday, but didn’t have to move very far to witness bonfires in the middle of neighborhood streets and impromptu fireworks launched everywhere. We had planned to hook up with some people we knew and hit the town for revelry but decided to lay low instead and let miko’s leg heal. the plan seemed to work as today we took a long, beautiful walk on mostly deserted streets and she’s back to cruising speed.
the tiendas, most restaurants and businesses were closed. people were at home with their families. the weather was perfect, cool, a light breeze, occasionally the sun peeked out and mixed warmth with the cool currents of air. We walked along the Tomebamba then cut up to downtown and found a cafe that was open and had some ice coffees with lunch. word of the day: contraseña as in “tiene la contraseña para el wifi?” to get the password for the cafe’s public wifi. (which was “conbuencafe” btw)
after that we went up to check a missing piece in our logistics puzzle. Our stay here ends the 7th, the place I’m thinking is the long term solution starts April 1st. Contact with the “gap” provider was a bit problematic over email, so we walked by to pay a visit in person. The complication was the 17th of January where they had everything booked, for that single day. What we worked out was we move there for a month to month starting the 7th, we move out the 17th (they put our stuff in temp storage), spend the night in a hotel a block down the street and come back the 18th and continue until end of March. We’ve got it all worked out now…i’m pretty sure :)~ We will look at the April 1st place this Sunday to see if it will work. it’s a pretty sweet setup if it does.
so just a quick word about the toilets and this missive is complete for today. this place we’re staying now has old plumbing. not uncommon here, a little weird, you throw the toilet paper in a wastebasket beside the toilet rather than in the toilet. and there’s a little potpourri type pot running all the time to mitigate the smell, but it kind of added to the problem. I don’t know what brujo mixture of stuff they had in there, but it looked like at least 6 different types of strange plants which combine to produce a smell akin to stinky socks. so I dumped it, refilled it with water and dosed it with some essential oil (lemon) and (to me) this works much better!
and here’s the only picture I took today on our walk.
