An Interesting Week

Fat Tuesday was Mardi Gras and we celebrated! This was a first for us, but down here, Carnival is huge. So a group of us joined the revelers at Common Grounds and got in the spirit of Mardi Gras!

Jenny and Tom

Sharon and Regina

Bruce with face paint (and Regina’s wig)

Sharon, Regina and Jenny

On Friday we visited the thermal hot springs in a small town on the outskirts of Cuenca. There are a few resorts that offer massages, mud treatments, steam baths etc. We went for the fifteen dollar package at Novaqua which gave us access to the swimming pool, steam room and hot and cold plunge pools. They gave us a bag with a robe, towel, bathing cap and soap and the restaurant offered a variety of food and drinks, tho we decided to wait and eat in town afterwards. It was very relaxing!! What a great way to spend a day.

Lots of natural rock work

The town of Baños

Walking into town for lunch afterwards

The next night, Saturday, we had our first party at our new apartment with six people, including ourselves. We served assemble your own tacos and Regina made margaritas and home made brownies. So good! The chocolate down here is exceptional. Earlier in the week we had a few things delivered to make our place more homey instead of feeling like a motel. Marks consignment brought a nice chair, a wall hanging, an ottoman (called a pouf down here) and two chaise lounges for our communal terrace. From Regina we bought a coffee table, a chair for Bruce’s office, two lamps and some kitchen items. We still have more to buy but are kind of waiting to see if we get residency. More on that later.

Flowers on the new coffee table
Three dollars for a dozen roses and one fifty for a bunch of alstroemeria

view from one of the bedrooms

And from Bruce’s office

from our living room
those are Eucalyptus trees along the river

Our new living room chair from Mark’s

one of our new lamps from Regina

I love this ceramic dish that Bruce chose from Regina’s sale of items from her other apartment

Next time I will have photos of our new chaise lounges on our communal terrace

That’s all that I have from last week. I think our rainy season is arriving. We had a terrific thunder and lightening storm. It was awesome!!! But the sun usually comes out every day.
So, hasta luego! Que tengas un gran día!🙂