Group wants highway emergency declared; Airport to close for 3 months for upgrades; PanAm highway closed; Cuenca gastroenterology center opens

Viernes, 17/3/2023

Hola, Todos –

Feliz Día de San Patricio. <If you drink a lot of green beer today, do you pass green piss tomorrow? I’m just extrapolating from an experience after eating a ton of beets one day.>

Actividades –

Titular –

Activan juicio político a Lasso (Lasso’s impeachment trial activated) – See today’s (viernes) article in CHL for story.

Cuenca –

Marcelo Carvallo, director of the Corporación Aeroportuaria de Cuenca, said Friday that Cuenca’s Mariscal La Mar Airport will close for 90 days for upgrades and repaving. (El Mercurio)

Exigen que el Gobierno declare emergencia vial (Demand that the government declare a road emergency) – The members of the assembly for roads in Azuay met ayer to demand an emergency declaration. The assembly is still waiting for an answer from the Government about road needs in Azuay. They presented their concerns el 2/3 and gave the Government 30 days for a response. They also questioned the agreement between MTOP and the Korean government business “Expressway Corporation” for a $10 million contract to conduct pre-feasibility and feasibility studies for building new Cuenca-Guayaquil and Quito-Guayaquil highways. There should be temporary bypass across privately owned land at km 112 of the vía Cuenca-Girón-Pasaje in a few days.

Cuenca tendrá primer centro público sobre gastoenterología (Cuenca will have first public gastroenterology center) – The first gastroenterology center in the south of the country will be built in the Hospital José Carrasco Arteago (IESS). Construction will take about 8 months and cost $1 million. Hospital data shows that this specialty is one of the ones with the most demand. The center will have 600 sq. meters with 5 new consulting rooms, 3 endoscope rooms, 3 rooms for functional and capsule endoscopy studies, a diagnosis room, a surgical suite, and a waiting room for patients’ families.

De El Mercurio del jueves, 16/3 (1 article):
El aeropuerto cerrará tres meses: CORPAC (Airport will close for 3 months: CORPAC) – Marcelo Carvallo, executive director of the Corporación Aeroportuaria de Cuenca (CORPAC), said the airport will be closed for 3 months to refurbish the runway. Although the contract term is 210 days, it does not mean that airport operations would be suspended for the period of time. The hotel and tourism sector has asked that the closure not be in julio y agosto which are when schools are on vacation and are high travel months. The contract will be awarded el 16/5 after the new administration starts. The first 90 days will be for logistics – installation of a asphalt plant, provision of materials and importing equipment. The project will include installing a new drainage system and then placing 3 layers of new asphalt <Glad to hear they aren’t going to use used asphalt. That would be taking reduce, reuse, recycle too far.> with additives to guarantee high quality. The work also includes leveling the safety strips, which is the green area, replace the lighting system and the monitoring board.2

Nacional –

Inhabilitada la vía Riobamba-Cuenca (Riobamba-Cuenca highway closed) – The vía Riobamba-Alausí-Azogues-Cuenca was completely closed by MTOP due to geological faults which cracked the road and continual landslides from the rains. Alausí declared a 60 day emergency to attend to the effect of the mass movement which required the evacuation of 10 families. The canton has been under a yellow alert since 19/2 when the Secretaría de Gestión de Riesgos (SGR – Secretariat for Risk Management) issued an alert about the earth movement in 2 communities and 5 barrios. Recommended alternate routes are the vía Riobamba-Guamote-Pueblo Viejo-Alausí for light vehicles, and the vía Riobamba-Pallatanga-El Triunfo-Zhud for heavy vehicles. <I hope none of you has road trip planned. It looks like what’s open for travel right now is south. Go spend a weekend in Vilcabamba, get bored, and come home.>

Descuentos y compras –

SuperMaxi – a Daewoo manual air fryer for $49.99 (normal price – $115.99) with purchases over $35 of SuperMaxi branded products. Renew your Supermaxi membership to maintain your benefits. <They’ll tell you about renewing your membership when you check out – in Spanish of course. So when they point to that Q code on the receipt, that’s what they want you to do. Since I’m technologically inept, the bagger did it for me. If your Spanish is nil, you could probably look clueless and get helped, too.>

And that’s all for today so hasta ? –

Jeanne