Posts:
I’ve spent a decent chunk of my life standing in government offices clutching a folder full of notarized, apostilled, cross-referenced documents, while someone behind a glass screen frowns at page 7 and tells me it should’ve been printed on A4 paper. If you’ve...
By Dorothy Neufeld Over the past decade, freedom has sharply declined in many countries. Authoritarian leaders have expanded their power by rewriting constitutions, silencing the media, and suppressing opposition. As democratic institutions erode, waves of protest...
How can older adults in Ecuador, lead healthy, active lives? How can they find competent medical care and other professional services they can trust? How do they tailor their living arrangements to the changing conditions of aging? These were the questions addressed...
By Stewart McCorvey Becoming an expat shapes your personality as it takes you through a journey of life struggles and challenges. Every expat goes through very particular circumstances, but there are certain things that almost all of them will have experienced. I have...
Opening a bank account in Ecuador used to be one of those bureaucratic escapades involving proof of address, proof of existence, and possibly a note from your grandmother. But things have loosened up, at least at Banco de Pichincha. I walked in with my resident's...
Cuenca universities will celebrate an academic and cultural 'Raymi': Cuenca will be the site of "El Raymi de las Universidades y Diversidades" from the 16 to 21 June. The events will be at various venues and include talks about ancestral knowledge, traditional...
I’ve lived in Cuenca long enough to know that numbers — especially when it comes to expats — are more art than science. Depending on whom you ask, there are either 2,000 foreigners living here, or 12,000, or a million and two if you include the ones who only come out...
By Scott Levine More twists and turns than a drive through the Cajas! Usually when couples disagree, they slam a door, drop a few F-bombs, maybe toss a platter or two. But rarely does one party decide that the correct solution is … murder! In ACT’s newest production,...
The Tranvía is Cuenca’s sleek, quiet, gliding answer to traffic and taxis — and also one of the few things in town that regularly runs on time. It stretches like a silver thread from the Industrial Park in the northwest to the southern suburb of Río Tarqui, passing...
By Mark Daffey We're 3600 metres above sea level and for reasons unexplained, there's a canoe on the lawn outside the Chilcabamba Mountain Lodge where I'm booked to stay the next two nights. As incongruous as that sounds, even a boat so far from water fails to steal...
In Cuenca, pharmacies are like bus stops. There’s always another one just down the street — and sometimes three or four clustered together like gossiping hens. It’s not uncommon to see five within sight of each other, each offering the same range of off-brand...
By Anastasia Piatakhina Giré We all come to our new country with some kind of luggage. Sometimes we bring with us some heavily charged suitcases, sometimes just a few books and a backpack. Even if we like to travel light, we still carry some pieces of our reality, the...
By Rachel Fairbank Many of us regularly wear an activity tracker, which counts the number of steps we take in a day. Based on these numbers, it can be hard to make sense of what they might mean for our overall health. Is it just the overall number of steps in a day...
By: Connie Farrell Scuderi You are living in beautiful Ecuador, having finally reached retirement age or as known here, tercera edad. Once you have unpacked and settled, you ask yourself how to find the resources you need to ensure being prepared. These are some of...
By David Morrill and Deke Castleman Where do Cuencanos and expats buy their food? Although Supermaxi, Coral, Super Aki and other modern supermarkets sell their share of fresh produce, meat and fish, the city's markets, or mercados, continue to be the Cuenca's main...
Italy has joined Greece, Japan, Spain, Thailand, Indonesia, the Netherlands, and several other countries in enforcing new tourist tax hikes, but it’s drawing a hard line by targeting weekend and last-minute visitors with sharply increased fees and heavy penalties in...
Charlie Larga is nobody special — at least, not at first glance. Just another tall gringo with a sunhat, buying instant coffee in Tuti and muttering about how the bus used to cost less. He didn’t come to Ecuador to find himself. He came here because, like many of you...
By Jim Smith Retirement no longer means staying in one place. More seniors and retirees are choosing to live abroad while working part-time or managing their finances online. In cities like Cuenca, Ecuador, this new lifestyle, sometimes called digital nomadism, is...
Let’s begin with a simple assumption: you just want a blender. Nothing fancy. You’re not looking to crush diamonds or blend frozen mangoes into silky perfection for your artisanal juice bar. You just want to make a banana smoothie without waking the neighbors or...
By Heather Walters Nick and Melanie Thompson are doing things their way. They and their four young children have embarked on a journey to explore parts of the world and experience the many cultures it contains firsthand and for real. Currently, they are in southern...
