Rainy Days and Guinea Pigs

This is the dry season in Cuenca. But, it's been even drier than usual and the rivers are running to about half what they were this time last year. So, everyone has been wishing for rain. Well, this week, we finally started getting some rain. We've had some pretty good rainfall the last few days, and everyone is relieved to see it.

We've been busy getting the lease for our apartment squared away, measuring and shopping for drapes, buying appliances (for those of you reading this in the US, apartments don't come with appliances, so you have to get your own and you take them with you when you move), buying a bed, etc.

Here are some shots of the apartment we will be moving into. It's huge, and is in a new highrise condo building where a lot of expats live. We have some good friends who live there already, and have already met a few other people in the building. Fortunately, there are a fair number of Ecuadoreans living there too, so we are hoping to become friends with some of our Ecuadorean neighbors.

I, Deborah, am particularly taken with the kitchen. It's larger even than any living room I've ever had before, much less a kitchen, and you all know I love to cook. I'll have a nice big room for a sewing room too, and Gil will have a room for a study/office.

Here are a couple of shots of the kitchen.





Gil says I'm going to lose weight just walking around in this kitchen. I sure hope so, because something's gotta work.

This is a view from the master bedroom (also huge) into the dressing area and then into the master bathroom.



The master bathroom has a jacuzzi. Aaaahhhhh!!!!



There are also these wonderful built-in cabinets in every room. This one is in the room where I will have my sewing room. This saves me from having to have cabinets made for storing all my sewing supplies and my material stash. Also, note the beautiful wooden floors. They are in the three "bedrooms", and the rest of the apartment has beautiful ceramic tile floors, which are very standard in Ecuadorean homes.



And finally, here's the view from the kitchen, dining room, and Gil's study windows. The beautiful mountains, where we will be able to see those gorgeous sunsets to which we are becoming accustomed.



Over the last few days, the wonderful and always fun to be with Fabian has been helping us with the chores for getting ourselves set up. On Saturday, after doing some shopping, getting our coopera account set up so we can get discounts at the organic market, and getting our Supermaxi discount card, we were hungry. Gil has been hankering for cuy, so Fabian took us to a wonderful little restaurant where we could have cuy cooked the traditional way.

The cuy is put on a spit, in this case a long wooden stick, and slowly roasted over hot coals. In this photo, the cuy is getting close to being done, but still has a little way to go. The restaurant is a family affair. This is me with the proprietor and his mother who is the cook. She's been cooking cuy for many, many years and knows what she is doing.



Finally, the cuy is ready to eat. Fabian and I are ready to start.



But, we couldn't start without getting a picture of Gil getting ready to have his first cuy. (I had cuy in Peru about 10 years ago, so this wasn't my first time. Although, this was much better than the cuy I had in Peru, because that cuy was dry, stringy and tasteless. I think it was an old one. This one was young and plump.)



Now, that's one happy man! He enjoyed it too. He's ready to go again. Those other things on the table are potatoes that were absolutely delicious. We had a lot of them, so we brought a "doggy bag" home with us and have been enjoying re-heated potatoes for several meals. There's also a plate of white corn and a little bowl of delicious tree-tomato salsa. The cuy was fattier than we expected. I guess that's why they are called guinea PIGS. They have a fat layer under the skin just like a pig. The roasted skin is fantastic!!!

Now, we realize that cuy isn't for everyone, but we are adventurous eaters, and are mighty glad we are. There are so many wonderful foods here to try, and we are looking forward to each and every one of them.