By David Morrill Although cost and location are probably the biggest considerations when looking for property in the countryside near Cuenca, there are other factors that deserve serious attention, some of which are easily overlooked. What elevation are you comfortable with? What weather do you...
By David Morrill One of the great pleasures that many expats discover in Ecuador is art collecting. Even those who were not collectors back home take up the habit, smitten by the quality, variety, and sheer emotional force of the talent in this small Andean country. Another inducement is that good...
By David Morrill On September 10, 1783, Cuenca resident Melchor del Valle was convicted by the Spanish Royal Court of murdering his brother Sylvester. The sentence: "Two hundred lashes in the public square, then hanging on the gallows until death.” The court further ordered that, when the body was...
By David Morrill and Deke Castleman Most foreign visitors start their first tour of Cuenca at Parque Calderón and many expats pass through the park on a daily basis. Despite the recent restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the park remains full of people, the heart and soul of the city....
One of the more curious subspecies of Ecuador expat is the small but noisy contingent that is utterly obsessed with the price of things; more specifically, they are obsessed with the notion that they are being ripped off, not only by Ecuadorians, but by other expats who are complicit in the...
For all the prophecies of doom about the outcome of Sunday’s election, the changes that will follow are likely to be relatively minor no matter who wins. Most of the dire forecasts come from right-wing and centrist editorialists and commentators. At their most restrained, they claim that a Andres...
Editor's note: Cuenca's Easter soup, fanesca, is considered by many to be the best in Latin America and it is a tradition among Cuencanos to have at least one bowl of it during Holy Week. It is considered so good, in fact, that it was the subject of a cover story in New Yorker magazine in 2005....
By Deke Castleman and Sylvan Hardy We’re all Gary’s children. Gringos lived and worked in Ecuador long before Gary and Merri Scott showed up in 1995, but the Scotts, almost single-handedly, put Ecuador on the radar screens of thousands of pilgrims to the Middle of the World. Almost all Cuenca...
By David Morrill and Deke Castleman “Los precios gringos” or gringo pricing, also known as the “gringo gouge” and “gringo tax,” is a hot topic in virtually all Latin American expat communities inhabited by norteamericanos. Even in the times of the coronavirus, the subject can raise a stir. The...
By David Morrill On March 26, local news media reported the first bodies on the sidewalks of Guayaquil. Within the days, the international media, including the New York Times, the Guardian and the Washington Post were in town to share the lurid images with the world, revealing, they said, what...
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