Our move to the apartment

It is Monday, September 27^th and we checked out of Villa Nova Inn at about 9:30 AM.  Our new friends Dixie and Juan picked us up and took us to our apartment.  We moved into Ortorongo Apartamentos Torongo about a mile up river from our hotel on the other side of the river.  We got a basic but nice one bedroom apartment for $425 for the month including fully furnished and equipped with everyday maid and they do our laundry and we eat a continental breakfast each morning in the outside common dining area.

We went on a tour with our new friends real estate agent and guide Dixie and our driver/interpreter Juan.  It was a great tour and we now know where all the malls are.  They took us to a spot well above the city of Cuenca and what a view we got.  Photos are below.  We asked Juan to be at our beck and call for the rest of our time here.  He said no problem.  What an arrangement.  Taxis and buses are still cheapest and we will use them primarily.  Right now we are just using taxis because we haven’t got up the courage to strike out to parts unknown on a bus.  We got our cell phone today and we now have a Cuenca Ecuador phone number.

During our tour Dixie and Juan took us all around the city and showed us the important sights such as hospitals, malls, shopping areas, different areas to live in and some nice homes as you see here.

After our tour Dixie and Juan`dropped us off at the Mall Los Americas and we had lasagna for lunch (that’s the big meal of the day here).  We met a very nice US expat couple who gave us a bus map book and shared with us the ins and outs of the busses and other sites in Cuenca.  We want to give a great big thanks to Randy and Karen and tell then we havent made it to Mercado Feria Libre yet but it is on our Saturday agenda.  We couldn’t eat all our meal so we took it home with us.  The lasagna meal cost us about $12.  Then we went shopping for groceries.  A quick Taxi ride back to our apartment for $2 and we are here putting things up and getting organized.  Here are some photos of the mall and the meal.

We decided that ham sandwiches were perfect for dinner.  So we ate, checked our email and retired to bed early.  So we ended another day in our adventure.