Strange attractors.. pt 1. (Mar. 19/14) Yesterday was magical. Our spot at Pilis B&B was not going to be available for another night, so we absolutely needed a place to stay. Simultaneously, we need a longer-term rental and are on the lookout for property to buy. Melodys brain injury issues make it so finding an appropriate rental is challenging, as she needs both quiet beyond what most ppl consider reasonable (a running fridge is a problem for her) as well as no fluorescent lighting in her sight line at LEAST for a distance of 100m .. and to be safe, more like 200m. Pili was having trouble getting landlord-types to understand, so in the latest contact with a woman named Merci (short for Mercedes, I think), she asked Melody to post the questions herself, both to be sure Merci understood as well as so that Pili would have Melodys presentation available when contacting the next potential landlord. Mercis heart was clearly touched by Melodys description of her needs and issues. She simply said, This place will be perfect for you, I think. So we planned to take a taxi (with Pili) to a known landmark (Gringotree) and meet them at 10:00am so they could take us the 1:15 drive (89km) to their place. We were a bit late (Pili underestimates travel times, it seems), but they were there and were entirely gracious. Ecuadors racial mixes range from pure Caucasian to pure native indian; I think Fausto and Merci are of Italian background, at least largely. He is about 5cm shorter than I (about 180cm or 510) and she is about 3cm shorter than Melody (she says 162cm or about 54). Their crew cab Mitsubishi pickup at 10 yr old looks quite new. We piled in and were off. The road we took we think is Ecuadors main north-south artery (south out of Cuenca) and has been recently upgraded by the Correa administration to be a 2 lane concrete highway of similar to NA standards aside from slope stabilization for overhangs. We started from Cuenca at 8000 (2700m ballpark) and the highway climbed to 3100m-3150m (over 10000) and followed a ridgeline for a large fraction of the trip, before dropping over 1000m in less than 10 min. at the end of the trip. (Their GPS includes an altimeter) Conversation on the way was lively. Fausto is an electrical engineer, and Merci an agricultural engineer. They have been partners for 15 years and together as a couple for 8 (if I understood correctly). Her English is very good.. at least equivalent to my Spanish, which has been getting a lot of compliments (Gracias, Sra Tomlak). His English is roughly equivalent to Melodys Spanish, which equates to a reasonable understanding without the ability to fluently form sentences at speed. I made a deal with Merci early on, that I would correct her English, if she would correct my Spanish, as theres a tendency once someone speaks well enough to be comprehensible to simply communicate, rather than correct, limiting further progress to what one can manage from listening. .. breakfast time.. more later.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 20:14:12 +0000
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