I was relaxing after a sumptuous lunch of chicken with walnut sauce at Hosteria Hacienda Pinsaqui. GM Alex Roman came up to the table. “Your Horse is ready,” he said. With that I walked out to the green lawn near the stables to meet my steed. Maradona is an eight-year […]
Our final night in Ecuador brought us out to the country, it was a welcome relief from the crowded streets and noisy bustle of Cuenca. We took a taxi out to Hosteria Caballo Campana about 15 minutes from the center of Cuenca and were soon patting some friendly horses and […]
Jose Jimenez makes dyes from walnuts, insects and other natural things to weave in spectacular shawls. Rosita Loja, miniature maker
We spent the day in Cuenca, which is a very pretty city, as so many people in Quito told us. There is a trout-filled river that runs through the city, and lots of churches and houses that go back to colonial times. Along the river, green mowed lawns line the […]
Quito is an exciting city and over the past three days I’ve gotten a chance to talk to a lot of locals about what is coming up and what’s exciting here in Ecuador’s largest city. I also got to get a feel for the place when I took a long […]
Inside Café Cultura, a boutique hotel in Quito three fires crackled in the fireplaces, as we were welcomed warmly by Lazlo Karolyi, a Hungarian immigrant who owns this and five other boutique hotels in Ecuador. He was happy have us, having sent a car to fetch us at our hotel, […]
We spent the day exploring many of the best attractions of Quito, starting by driving up to the El Panecillo, the park at the top of a mountain that overlooks the historic downtown and its many houses on the hillsides. There is a metal statue of a winged Virgin Mary […]
I have a familiar feeling of a combination of dread and anticipation because tomorrow morning I’ll catch a flight from Boston to Atlanta. Then after a layover, I’ll fly to Quito Ecuador, and at 10 pm Tuesday night I’ll be in a new country, one that I’ve never visited before. […]
I’ve made a tradition of attending the downtown Amherst Block party, and last night we kept it going, meeting up with family and friends at those round tables they park in the middle of North Pleasant St. I am very fond of events that involve blocking out cars, since I […]
Every day I delve into another place. As I comb through my vast inbox full of travel stories, I go to wherever the story is located. Today I enjoyed a lunch with enough good wine to make me sleepy rural Alfarnatejo Spain, where Inka Piegsa-Quischotte took a food tour. It’s […]
I met with a group of software developers tonight and the topic was the onerous ‘tech tax’ that’s been imposed with a very short lead time on anyone in Massachusetts who uses ‘commercial software’ to provide services to people. The good news is that the consensus from these members of […]
I think I’ve discovered a secret to happiness in life. Get those little things done that you keep putting off that ultimately will make you miserable if you don’t deal with them. I had a few of those today, first I brought my car in for inspection and was shocked […]