Ecuador 9 – A Colombian gigolo and an earthquake
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
The great thing about traveling is that you always seem to run into interesting characters. Some good, some bad but there´s almost always a good story. Take, for example, this one:
On my second day in Cuenca I was wandering down the street when a guy points and yells at me (in English) “Germany!!” (I´m
frequently mistaken for being German rather than an American…well, until I open my mouth anyway). Wanting to be friendly, I stop to chat and soon I hear this: “Do you speak Spanish? I know a beautiful place we can go together where I can practice my English and you can practice your Spanish.” While it seemed like a good opportunity to work on my abysmal Spanish, my “Ick Detector” was sounding loudly in my brain. So I did what any girl in this situation would…I lied. “Oh, I´m so sorry…but I´m leaving early tomorrow morning.”
“OK, too bad,” says David the Colombian.
Somehow I had a feeling I would run into him again…and sure enough…the very next day he spotted me while I was in a restaurant having lunch. Damn, “My plans changed,”
lied Stacey again. This time, though, David was accompanied by a gringo-looking person though one whose Spanish was fluent so when asked to go get a cup of coffee I decided it would be safe (plus I felt slightly bad about being caught so blatantly lying).
It turns out that the gringo with David was Mo, a Chilean who is also from Indiana…hence the gringo appearance and really good Spanish. From Mo I learned that David´s only “job” (his real name is Enrique…he has several aliases) is to troll around
The archeaological museum built on Incan ruins (excavated Inca terraces in the background)
the streets of Cuenca looking for foreigners (mostly women) to charm and pilfer money off of. Lucky me. It seems that David/Enrique had been mooching food and drink off of Mo for several days so when it became clear that no one was going to buy The Gigolo any coffee…he departed…off to El Cafecito where some Swedish girls he met on the street were rumored to be. Fun times in Cuenca…
Femke and Remko from Rotterdam
But the fun was just beginning it seems as that very night, after a lovely dinner with the Dutch couple I met on the bus from Guayaquil (pictured above), we were struck by a rather strong earthquake…rumored to be around 6.1 on the Richter scale. I had just switched the light off to go to bed when it struck and it took me about 15 seconds of the 20 second rattle before I figured out what was going on. Personally, I found the quake to be quite fun (no damage in Cuenca) but a few people in my hotel freaked out (especially those on the second floor) and went running out into the courtyard in their pajamas. Definitely better than any earthquake I ever experienced in California…
…So a few notes about the pictures. I´m mostly just including some shots of interesting buildings so you can get an idea of the architecture around here. Cuenca reminds me a lot of Spain and the spanish-style buildings are in much better shape here than in Quito. While it´s been a bit rainy, it´s still quite warm here which has been a pleasant surprise. As in the rest of Ecuador, people are friendly and helpful and I´ve enjoyed my time here. Yesterday I went hiking at about 4600 meters (roughly 15,000 feet) which was interesting and yielded some cool photos of the terrain. More on that later this week…and tomorrow I´m off to Vilcabamba for some pre-Galapagos R&R. Type to you soon…
Stacey