For someone that is supposedly “retired” I sure seem to run out of time daily.  It has been a hectic last few days. I will just hit some highlights.

I was to meet someone from Colombia. Her name is Erika, and she contacted me because she has been in Cuenca for 30  days, and is hating it. She got sick from the cold and rain (Cali is a warm climate) for a few weeks. She attempted to find work but has run into a lot of prejudice. She must be either a prostitute or a drug-dealing criminal. Or at least that’s what they tell her. We had a very nice lunch together. She speaks not one word of English so it was great for me. I finally am forced to use those words rattling around in my head. I introduced her to the owner of the restaurant (Orlando) and he may be able to help some. She is trying to decide to hang around a bit longer or just go back home. It wasn’t what she hoped or expected. Fortunately, she is able to stay rent-free with a girlfriend that is also from Colombia and has a place. In meeting with her (a rescheduled appointment… remember when I locked myself in my underwear on the patio? That’s who I was to go meet) I totally forgot another viewer that ask to meet.

They (a very nice married couple) had just arrived and wanted to discuss a few things. So Erika came with me to find them. I took a taxi from the restaurant, and somehow he just dropped us off nowhere near where we were going. I would have looked at my phone, but the battery decided to die. And then it begins to rain. Wow. Seriously? Here she is in a thin flowing sundress perfectly suited for the 100-degree coast, and it happens to be about 60 and rainy. So I gave her my jacket. For me, it is T-shirt weather anyway. And we walked. Got some insanely bad directions, walked some more. I felt I knew the direction so away we went. As I pointed out a nice looking place, I realized it was the one we were looking for. So in I go, and we wait. And wait. They were told that no one is on time, so don’t worry about it. We were 2 minutes early, so we waited for about half an hour. I was about to leave and they came in.

So his wife made some tea for Erika (shivering away) and we talked. For about an hour and a half. I realized I had co-opted Erika and really should “release” her. So we said our goodbyes (he snapped a pic of us) and I put her in a cab. It was too late for my shopping so I headed home. The next day I needed to be home, so today, being out of everything from bread to eggs to… well everything, I headed to the big city of Cuenca. I did my shopping and grabbed a taxi to come home. As I came out of the store, these huge raindrops slashed. I mean like shot glass size. They were well spaced out so easy to avoid, but you didn’t want to look up! I flagged a taxi, made sure of the price, and away we go. Then it starts to pour. I mean deluge style. He couldn’t see where he was going, and wipers didn’t help. Luckily that didn’t slow him down. After 5 minutes of that, it starts to HAIL! Crazy! Dark clouds, pounding hail, cars confused. But he kept going. As we got closer to Giron the clouds lightened, then cleared. The sun was spread out warming the air. We had to get through some fog/low lying clouds, but the weather was nice as we descended down into my town.

Tomorrow I head back to Cuenca to meet someone at the Mall that wants to possibly buy one of my cameras. The one I no longer use.

We shall see what another day in Ecuador brings.