salsa di gringa

The pain of missing Bahia madly was lessened when arriving in the artsy town of Cuenca. This town pulses with live energy and creativity up and down its cobble-stoned streets. With galleries and artsy types and dirty hippies and live music and markets full of hand-made goods and textiles and sweaters and on and on and on, I'm in love at first sight. I want only more time in this beautiful city with rivers running through it and mountains surrounding it.

Wednesday Laura and I headed to Cafe Ecualypto, where ladies drink free all night according to Lonely Planet. We sat down and ordered some hummus, seeing the sign proclaiming, "3 FREE DRINKS!....for $4" I think that's "3 drinks...for not much money". but welcome to Ecuador. Whatever, we enjoyed our discounted-because-of-our-gender drinks and headed over to Cuenca's Wednesday night salsa hotspot, La Mesa.

An eclectic crowd of both locals and gringos were packed into this sweaty hole-in-the-wall salsa club. long hair and piercings and odors and plaid and beanies, oh my.

Laura and I grabbed a tiny corner table and sipped our beers, waiting for the inevitable. Sure enough, in a matter of minutes, Rafael, a local artist, sat down to join us and wanted to dance.
He embraced my salsa di gringa on the dance floor and I've never been twirled and spun so much.

Laura and I walked back afterward with some guys from our hostel. Kicking it on the hostel's rooftop, he German hopped the tin roof over to the next hostel, the Argentinian smoked his foot-long pipe and passed around Frosted Flakes, and the American talked about his shwarma cravings. sounds about right.

Friday morning Rafael picked us up at our hostel to go check out some local galleries and museums- or so we thought. He told us his architect buddy was waiting in his car to take us to a nearby pueblo where he had built a house. Ok, por que no?
We drove about 45 minutes away in the back of a tiny egg of a car to see the most beautiful house I've seen in Ecuador. Complete with every flower and plant imaginable and a backyard pool and hot tub. Apparently the owner's father works in the States. Go figure.

We then headed into town looking for some cuy ( better known to us as guinea pig, and one of Ecuadorian's specialties).

They must have been fresh out of the furry-faced rodent but we passed by a row of 5 full-size pigs just sprawled out and baked to a crisp.
A woman broke off a piece of its crispy skin and handed us some. Mmm.
Actually, I nearly gagged but Laura loved it and we ordered three plates. Freshy fresh, right out the gut.

Safely back in Cuenca, trying not to think about what we just did to our insides, Laura and I bummed around, popping in and out of shops that caught our eyes until sunset where we got a $2.50 box of wine and sat by the river.
Bad location choice. First Laura sat on what we are pretty sure was human urine, then a crack-head approached us, and when we were trying to leave this hell-hole we saw 4 or 5 giant river rats.
Now, my fear of mice has improved a bit- it used to be something fierce. Fierce like the crazy phobic people on Jerry Springer who go into full blown seizures over buttons and shit. But seeing these giant rats, capable of eating stray dogs-I'm sure- just scurrying along the river's path, plotting my death, I went into full panic-mode. I lost all ability to speak and just ran ran ran up far away to safety.
"That's where people go to die," Laura said out of breath running behind me.

Once I regained my cool we met up with Rafael and he took us to an art exhibit in town. It was like entering another world as everyone was dressed sleekly in black with their 'I'm so fricken artsy' glasses and shoes that go tap tap.
Laura, Andy and I were pretty out of place as Andy wore an inside out Hollister T, I was in jeggings and a multi-colored scarf and Laura had a half-full box of vino tucked away in her giant bag.
Laura's near blindness worked in her favor, ,however, as she sported some pretty trendy glasses- offsetting her $2 rainbow flip-flops.

The artist, Tomas Ochoa, was voted one of Europe's top 100 artists and displayed work on Ecuadorian gold miners exploited by Americans. Little awkward for us.
At one point in the film the interviewer asked the 100 year-old retired miner if he was ever interested in any of the American women.
"Absolutely not" he responded as Laura and I shared uncomfortable giggles and corrected our postures in a room full of Latinos.
No more jeggings for me.