Blisters All Over The Block

Blisters are a traveler's biggest pain. Small yet pernicious, they make it hard to enjoy strolling the neighborhood and even harder to decide which instrument of torture will be covering them today. By instrument of torture, I am referring to all the shoes I brought with me, none of which I can currently stand to wear.

This is mostly my own fault for over exerting myself in shoes that I hadn't worn in a while. I don't wholly regret it, however, as it resulting in getting to see some great parts of the city.

I spent Sunday afternoon with CF, an artist and ghostwriter from New York that I met on the plane from Guayaquil to Cuenca. We'd hit it off during the plane ride and had swapped contact information so that we could meet up. She's here for three weeks, I'm here for nine, but what the heck--an expat is an expat is an English speaker with a sense of humor. I'll take it.

Sense of direction? Well, maybe we should have taken that too. Cafe Austria was the meeting place, but the destination was anyone's guess. Nominally, we were after empanadas and morrochos, which is a kind of local non-alcoholic drink.

After two or three miles in strappy sandal, my feet were killing me! We'd also been the victim of two drive by water balloon attacks and one window water balloon bombing. The Cuenca tradition of water ballooning people was thankful explained to me by my landlord in advance, so I didn't view it as malicious. CF, on the other hand, took it as an attack. Well-meant or not, the balloon impact is painful and it's no fun being wet walking around.

We didn't find our place, although we did stop and eat after getting our cabbie all lost and confused, too. Hunger overwhelmed, and with the little phrase "Somos locas . . ." we got a quick u-turn and dump at a decent looking food stand.

That was all good, in the end. Surveying my feet this morning, however, is all kinds of bad news. Blisters on the back of my heel, pinkie toes, and sides of feet are explicable. More mysterious is the blister in the middle of the bottom of my left heel. No idea where it came from, but barefoot seems to be the rule of the day!

Toilet Paper Isn't The Only Thing That's Arrived

It's official . . . after two days of connections, airports, and more airports, I've finally arrived at my apartment in Cuenca. I would be enjoying it a lot more if my body wasn't letting me know what it thought of my decision to be hand luggage only . . . apparently order two on the menu will be finding a masseuse and/or chiropractor to put my back in order again. So glad I brought the smaller computer or I would be a complete cripple!

Order one was toilet paper. It's the little things, right? Here I am in a lovely apartment located in the central downtown district furnished with everything you need to live . . . except for enough toilet paper to get a girl through the day. I was conserving squares from my very first wee, having heard from my rental agent about Supermaxi, the local mega-supermarket. Her directions indicated that it was close enough to walk, but not at night, due to needing to cross a river and a park that were "not nice" after dark. Exhausted from my day of travel anyway, I just went for food and called it a night, counting off my squares carefully.

In the morning, I just about chickened out and took a taxi. I'm lazy, my back hurts, the altitude is affecting me, wah, wah, wah. Whatever--I need to learn to navigate here on foot, so I make myself suck it up and walk there, with a nice detour to the Cafe Austria at the corner of Benigno Malo y Juan Jaramillo. They have a lunch set, which is more expensive than several of the other almuerzos I saw advertised walking over there, but they also have English magazines and a Wi-Fi spot. I add them to my list of potential work cafes and head out for the supermercado.

And promptly get lost. Who's surprised?

Fortunately, I did find it before pride failed and my sore feet had me hailing a taxi. Naturally, the way home was straightforward, since the place is only about a 10 minute walk from the house when you don't loop around the soccer stadium and all over the wrong side of the Parque de la Madre to get there. I don't think I will make it a primary stop . . . the fresh produce selection was kind of meh, which is not surprising given the number of outdoor markets here. However, I now know that I have a toilet paper connection whenever I need to get it. With a four roll pack costing just 90 cents, I think I can safely stop conserving squares.