Holiday events agenda includes crafts and food fairs, indie, rock, hip hop and reggae at Rotofest; Padre Matovelle exhibition; Garbage bills are detached

Bored?
Following is the agenda for activities this holiday weekend.

AGENDA

10 de octubre:
9:00 to 17:00 – Tour en Complejo Patrimonial Todos Santos – call 593 99 592 4649 for tickets.
19:00 – Ruta de Fantasmas (Route of ghosts) – theater – Museo de las Conceptas – call 593 99 900 3134 for reservations.
20:00 – Opening of the Festival Escenarios del Mundo (Stages of the World Festival) with ‘La noche de los Giles’ – Teatro Pumapungo.
20:00 – Fiesta Más Cumbia Por Favor (More Cumbia Please Party) – Popular Terraza <Sorry, I can’t tell you where that is> – call 593 98 353 6712 for tickets <and address>.
20:00 – Perro Negro Experience, Fiesta del Reguetón (Black Dog Experience, Reguetón party) – Convention Center, Mall del Río/ adults only – tickets from Meet2go, $30 and $50.

The international music festival Rotofest began Thursday night and continues through Saturday in various locations.

11 de octubre:
11:00 – Compañía Nacional de Danza show (National Dance Company show) – Parque de la Madre.
13:00 to 19:00 – Tour Leyendas en buses panorámicos (Legends Tour on panoramic buses) – Parque de Calderón at the tourist bus stop <you’ll see the double decker buses> on Luis Cordero – call 593 96 395 7427 for reservations.
10:00 to 16:00 – Recorridos Teatrales (Theater Tour) – Museo de la Moneda – Free.

12 de octubre:
Festival Escenarios del Mundo (Stages of the World Festival):
11:30 – Performance of Arriba los pies (raise your feet) – Parque Calderón.
17:00 – Performance of El Cruce Mágico en Bicicleta (The Magic Crossing on Bike) – Teatro Pumapungo.

Rotofest>>: tres días de música – The 19th edition of Rotofest, which combines alternate and electronic music with cultural activities will run from el 9-11 of octubre at 2 venues: the Parque de la Libertad in Cuenca, and the Centro Ecoturístico in the Valle de Yunguilla. The program will be divided into 3 parts: Rock Stage, Electronic Stage, and Rave Area, with performers from Belgium, Argentina, Ecuador, México, Sweden, Romania, and Chile. Invited acts include Sugxr Barbies, Black Purple, Letelfonot, Sole Llorente, Amare, Marhu, Mihai Popoviciu <That must be the Romanian>, Christian Smith, Amalia Balbontín, and more.

Concerts started Thursday (el 9/11) on the Rock Stage at noon with 11 national and international groups playing indie, rock, hip hop, ska and reggae. The program includes Suadero Soundsystem (México), 3VOL, Letelfono, and La Doble (Ecuador). On el viernes, 10/11, the same venue will host the Electronic Stage with 12 continuous hours of music from Marhu & Amare (Belgium), Sole Llorente (Argentina), and Jair and Luna Alvarado (Ecuador). The festival will close el sábado, 11/11 from 12:00-00:00 in the Valle de Yunguilla with the Rave Area. Performers will be Christian Smith (Sweden), Mihai Popoviciu (Romania – what did I say?>, Amalia Balbontín (Chile) and Constanza (Ecuador).

Running parallel to the Rotofest will be the VII Feria BZRT 2025 with participation by agricultural growers, breweries, coffee growers, crafts people, and representatives of regional gastronomy. These activities are free, and the spaces will be free of alcohol and violence. <I hope with the exception of the breweries which I would think would bring more than flyers and souvenir cups.>

Ferias will also be part of this holiday with the Ferias “Amor por Cuenca – Artesanía & Gastronomía ” (Love for Cuenca – Crafts & Gastronomy). The feria will be in spaces in El Centro including Calle del Artista, Plaza San Francisco, Plaza Santo Domingo and along Calle Federico Malo and along the length of Av. 12 de Abril in the Parque de la Madre sector. Hours will be from 9:00 to 18:00 with a large variety of handmade products as well as food options.

Museums will be open for extended hours. The Museo Municipal Remigio Crespo Toral will be open from 9-17:00 for the 4 days of the festival <Thu-Sun>. The Planetario Municipal will show astronomical projections, also from 9-17:00 for the 4 days of the festival. The Museo Municipal de la Paja Toquilla y el Sombrero will be open from 9:00 to 17:00 on the 9, 10, & 11 of octubre with their permanent exhibit “Cadena de Valor del Tejido del Sombrero en Paja Toquilla which shows the history and techniques of this straw weaving tradition. The Museo de las Conceptas will be open from 10.00 to 17:00 from the 9-11/10 with their permanent collection of religious art.

‘Reviven’ figura del padre Julio Matovelle – The Catedral Vieja de Cuenca is hosting an exhibit dedicated to Padre Julio María Matovelle, an important historic and religious figure in Cuenca and the country. This show combines traditional art with augmented reality technology, allowing the public to “talk” symbolically with the priest through their digital devices. <Better brush up on your Spanish. If you’ve been in denial as to the usefulness of the language, good luck. Maybe they’ll have an English version, but maybe not.> The exhibit will run until 7/11. Cost: $3.00.

Curious?
Tasa de basura ya no irá en planillas de luz – Starting this month, the bills from the electric companies will not include the Tasa de Recolección de Basura (TRB -Garbage Collection Fee). In a memorandum, the Corporación Nacional de Electricidad (CNEL) unilaterally terminated the agreements with cities for billing and collecting the cost of garbage service along with electrical service. The reason was that the agreements signed between the cities and the electricity providers did not comply with the Comprehensive Law for Public Electrical Service and the Law to Protect Personal Data and were therefore illegal.

The electric companies transferred the money collected to the municipalities along with consumer data (complete names and cedula numbers) without the consent of the customers. The public electrical service law established that the factura corresponding to electrical consumption could not include items that did not correspond with the services provided by the electric companies. An ADN assemblyman <same party as Noboa> from El Oro started this initiative to revise the garbage bill on electricity bills. He said that industries, due to their high consumption of power, had paid a high price for garbage collection even if they didn’t use that service or generated very little garbage. He gave an example of shrimp and banana farmers who paid a garbage bill of about 20% of their electric bills.

Cuenca Mayor Zamora offered the Government free consulting on the issue which had been solved many years ago in Cuenca. The city has a cap on garbage bills that large electricity users pay. It’s not a billing system where the more power used, the higher the garbage bill. <It doesn’t compute that more electricity consumption is related to more garbage generation. It’s not like the more water you use, the more wastewater you send into the sewer system so sewage bills can be a percentage of the water bill. Oh, well – someone is going to be sending you a garbage bill eventually. Hopefully it won’t be a year from now after they’ve worked out the system and you then you owe a year’s worth of garbage collection.>
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Information in this column, including dates, times and locations, is courtesy of the El Mercurio newspaper. Comments between the carrots, or guillemets (< … >), are the personal opinions of the author and not part of the news translation.