Why I Won't Ride a Motorcycle or Bicycle in Cuenca Ecuador

The bus driver was speeding down the road like many do here in Cuenca, when just a short distance ahead the light turned red. The bus driver knew he wouldn't be able to stop in time to not hit the car in front of him so he swerved and went into the right hand lane. Unfortunately, in the right hand lane was a man on a motorcycle. 



                               





We saw the motorcyclist, and the bus driver must have also, but none the less, the bus driver was just going way too fast; it was either swerve into the right lane and hope the motorcyclist sees the big bus barreling into his lane, or hit the car ahead.

The bus driver swerved into the right lane and sideswiped the guy on the motorcycle. It could have been fatal but luckily the cyclist was driving defensively, saw the bus, and was able to only get sideswiped, and he and his bike crashed to the ground. 



The bus stopped. 



The motorcyclist slowly got up from the pavement, took off his helmet, and slowly limped to the door of the bus. We thought he was going to yell at the bus driver, or take down information... and well, you know everything you would do in the US had you just been hit by a big "something ton" bus while you're on your bike. 

 The motorcyclist is the guy on the right

Instead the guy just said to the driver in loud Spanish, "what's going on? Didn't you see me?" We couldn't hear what the bus driver said back to the motorcyclist because the music on the bus was really loud. The guy simply went back to his cycle and someone got off the bus and helped him pick up his bike and the bus drove off. 

Ecuador ranks second in Latin America for number of traffic accidents.

Lately, in the last few months we have seen more cops ticketing drivers who are driving too fast. Hopefully this will help curb some of the traffic accidents that Ecuador has. However, all this new police activity, did not seem to bother this bus driver and prevent him from driving erratically and almost killing someone.  

In 2010, there were 50,000 accidents in Ecuador, which killed 2,500 people and 15,000 were seriously injured, while already this year the country has recorded 5,160 deaths from traffic accidents. Read the full article here.

Etapa Internet, Cuenca Ecuador – Just When We Thought We Were out of the Woods!

Regular readers know we’ve been back and forth with our Etapa Internet since we arrived. The last article told how we had everything brand new. The very nice head technical engineer at the Etapa office made sure we received a brand new modem. The phone line was replaced with a brand new one. And even the line originating from the telephone pole outside of the property, coming into the home, was replaced with a brand new one.


After all of this brand new equipment, we’ve been basking in pretty good internet, for Ecuador. So we thought. It lasted about three months. Not a bad streak. But, alas, it was not to last.


Some of our readers may have noticed that we have missed days where we have not posted anything. Well, this is because our Internet has been “in and out” for several weeks now. We’ve been at the mercy of Etapa for the past ten days. In the mornings it works ok until about noon and then it goes “out” for the rest of the evening, or the connection is so slow that trying to get any work done is impossible. But for the past two days it has just been “out” and no “in”.


Calling them on the phone doesn’t usually get the service techs to come out any sooner, so we end up rushing in the morning to get downtown to Etapa before the crowds show up. We get a number and wait for the next available service desk to open up so we can let them know the internet is not working. We have gone into their offices three times in a six day period and told them each time that in the evenings we do not have a connection or it is so slow you can’t get any work done.


What happens is the service tech will come out and he does his little techy things with the Internet, gets it working again, then leaves, and the next day, or the same evening it goes “out” again.


We thought since we had a new modem, new cable, and outside line that we wouldn’t be having these internet connection issues, but here it is 3 months later and we are having problems again.
We’re not the only ones who have grumbled about Etapa Internet service. Just the other day a local gal said Etapa was the worse service and she uses “Punta Net”. We have nothing to say about punta.net or any other service, except for our experiences with Etapa.


We sit here at Etapa’s mercy often. You can’t go anywhere and do anything else because the tech might show up. We’ve been waiting for two days for the tech guy to come out. You wouldn’t want to be gone while the tech was trying to fix your internet, would you? That would just push you back another day or two. Not only that, but after they come out and it (temporarily) works that evening, and then the next day’s evening it doesn’t work again, and we go back down to their offices the next day, they say it’s a brand new order and you have to wait two more days in a queue before they’ll come out again. I have to remind them in my broken Spanish that this is still the first order, as it never did get fixed, and so we deserve to be put at the front of the line, well that’s my reasoning anyway. Does it work? I don’t think so…


As soon as we do get the Internet back (no telling when that will be) we’re going to go hook up with “Cable TV” Internet so we’ll have a backup Internet. We’ve heard good and bad things about this Internet Company. We said we were going to do that in our last article but the internet started working so well that we blissfully relented.


It is unfortunate that we may have to pay for two Internet services but we work online and depend on a service that will be reliable. Let’s just hope that they both do not go out at the same time. Now that would be really third worldish.

Toasted Corn Nuts Recipe

Dried hominy and corn is used in food preparation throughout the region of Ecuador. Boiled hominy is added to soups, casseroles and other Ecuadorian dishes. Another way to use dried hominy is after it is boiled, roast it in the oven with a little salt and oil to make corn nuts. I remember eating the packaged corn nuts in the US. They are good.



Here in the Andes, roasted corn nuts are also used as a side dish for encebollada soup. We also like them roasted, and so about once a week I make a big batch of roasted corn nuts to have around for snacking on. 

 

Roasted Corn Nuts

Rinse 1lb of dried corn

Boil corn with a tablespoon of salt for 1 hour

Drain corn

 Spread the corn evenly in a baking dish or cookie sheet

 Add a tsp of salt and a couple tbs olive oil to the corn and mix well

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour in a  325 degree oven, checking on them periodically

You may want to stir them around a bit after about a half hour

Enjoy your roasted  corn nuts. They are kind of hard to stop eating once you get started.
Great for trips, hikes, and taking along with you to work.

Corn nuts are also good with a little Cayenne on them for those of you who like your food a little bit spicy. (Add the cayenne with the salt and oil before roasting)