News

Independence celebration, tourism boom push city’s lodging and entertainment capacity to the max

November 3rd, 2008

Cuenca tourism officials are urging local hotels, hostals and businesses to do a better of job of accommodating the city’s growing number of tourists. The current independence celebration has left late-arriving travelers with limited lodging options and the Azuay Hotel Association is urging hotel managers to report vacancies to the association or the municipal tourist...

AROUND TOWN‘Voices’ film festival continues at Sucre theatre

October 6th, 2008

Through Tuesday, Oct. 14. Check El Tiempo, El Murcurio and the iTurs office for complete information. Photography exhibition: Peruvian artist Adriko Canales Date: Until Oct. 17 Place: Paul Cézanne Gallery, Alliance Française Hours: 7:30 pm Sponsor: Alliance Française de Cuenca Photographic exhibition of the Italian immigration to Ecuador in the 1920s Date: Oct. 8 until Oct. 15 Place: Gallery...

VILCABAMBA ODYSSEYThe old man and the broom

September 11th, 2008

By Ron Gordon This morning, early, I walked to the village of Vilcabamba. To sit quietly, in the town square at early morning is to move into a Garcia Marquez novel. The village, so sleepy on its surface, is vibrating with energy. The skies seem ready to rain butterflies at any moment, covering the park,...

Romanian artist Liza Gafitanu Wheeler brings the ancient craft of mosaic art to Cuenca — and makes a major donation to the Tadeo Torres Home for Infants

September 6th, 2008

Like other major art centers, Cuenca has always depended on outsiders to enrich its heritage. One recent contributor, Liza Gafitanu Wheeler, caught the town's attention in February with a presentation of mosaic glass art at the Interamerican Center for Popular Arts (CIDAP). One of those who attended the exhibit was Juan Mendoza, who has taught painting at several Latin American universities. "I...

LITERARY DEAD END DEPT.Making sense of it all baffles another great mind as critic and novelist David Foster Wallace abandons the quest

September 4th, 2008

By A.O. Scott Reviewing a biography of Jorge Luis Borges in The New York Times Book Review a few years back, David Foster Wallace attacked the standard biographical procedure of mining the lives of writers for clues to their work, and vice versa. Borges’s stories, he insisted, “so completely transcend their motive cause that the...

English-language bookstore ‘dries out’ in a new location and changes its name after disastrous El Centro fire

August 11th, 2008

It would be a stretch to say to that Carolina Bookstore is rising from the ashes of the former ABC Bookstore. It is more the case of being a victim of the ´trickle-down effect´ that forced the relocation and prompted the renaming of the store following a July 4 fire behind the cathedral. ¨We’re open for business,¨...