Healthy Food , Exceptional Value- El Nuevo Paraiso

This was another one of our favorite restaurants in Cuenca. It's a vegetarian restaurant locate in Plaza San Blas. The food is so healthy and so cheap!If you are in the Cuenca area for a visit or if you live there, you must check it out. Here's some photos for your viewing:

This is the smoothie menu. Lot's of good stuff!

Can you see how big this yogurt and fruit sundae is? It's a lot bigger than Asher's head. We usually split this between 3 or 4 of us. It is loaded with melon, strawberries, pineapple, mango, papaya, their special yogurt and icecream all for $4.00.

This is one of the menu items for $2.80

Another plate on the menu for $2.80

El Nuevo Paraiso has 4 different locations but the one we went to is located in Plaza San Blas, Calle Bolivar 2-52 Y Manuel Vega.

Or check out their website for more info and photos. www.paraisovegetariano.com

One of our favorite vegetarian restaurants- GOOD AFFINITY

We have a few favorite restaurants that we frequent for "almuerzo", which means lunch in Spanish. Lunch in South America is primarily the largest meal of the day, with a light snack for dinner. Most restaurants have a set price for lunch and a set menu. Typically, lunch is anywhere between $1.50-$3.00. It usually consists of a bowl of soup, fresh squeezed fruit juice, the main plate and sometimes a dessert. One of our favorite places to go for almuerzo is called "Good Affinity" which is a vegetarian restaurant owned by Taiwanese expats. The food is so tasty and healthy and only costs $2.75 for 4 vegetarian sides on your plate, soup and juice or homemade soy milk for $2.75. They also offer noodle and rice dishes,veggie burgers, spring rolls and yogurt parfaits for $1.50-$3.25.

Good Affinity is located on Av. Ordonez and Av. Americas. They are open Mon-Sat 11:00a.m.-3:00p.m.

This noodle dish is loaded with broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and carrots. The soup had pasta, cilantro, cabbage, potato,and carrots, along with a glass of homemade soy milk all this for $3.25.

We go to see the Cuenca Symphony Orchestra for FREE!

Since we have been in Cuenca for 4 weeks now, we have had the pleasure of going to see the Cuenca Symphony 3 times now, for FREE! This is truly a blessing because back home, we have to pay around $50 per person if we want to see our city orchestra perform. With five of us, it adds up and so it has not been a luxury we have been able to indulge in. The performances have been exceptional and we are so grateful to be able to enjoy such a treat. We were really disappointed last week when we arrived to see the performance and the auditorium was completely full and they were not letting anymore people in. Our 3 year old cried because he was really looking forward to going to the symphony. He asked if he could get ice cream to make him feel better. The next performance is next Thursday, we may be able to post a video clip in the near future.

Free architectural walking tour

Cuenca, Ecuador became a Spanish settlement in 1557. The city center is listed as a Unesco World Heritage Trust Site due to it's many historical buildings. The city lies in the sierra of the Andes mountain and sits around 2500 meters above sea level, with four rivers running through the city and mountains on all sides. This geographical position along with it's historical background makes it a wonderful background for some beautiful photographs. The streets and sidewalks downtown are cobblestone or tiled. Every few blocks you may find a plaza with a fountain. Many of the colonial structures have endured with their original craftmanship , some being restored to withstand time. I took a walking photographic tour with my boys as an extra curricular assignment. We walked and snapped anything that was interesting. This was free and it was fun. Here's a few of the photos I took.

Cheap food

Part of saving money when traveling is cooking alot of our meals at home. We do enjoy going out a couple times a week to experience authentic Ecuadorean food, but we also enjoy experimenting with Ecuadorean recipes as well. One of the best things about Ecuador is that it is home to many fruits and vegetables due to the ideal climate. We have been really taking advantage of easy access to locally grown organic fruits and vegetables. There are several "mercado's " in the area that are indoor and sometimes outdoor food markets. Each stall is owned and operated by a separate vendor selling fruits, vegetables, raw meat as well as dried goods like rice and quinoa.

These bags of tomatoes, avacados and onions, were $1.00 each. As you can see there are 10 onions in one bag, 10 tomatoes in the other and 5 medium sized avocados in the last bag. They were bagged, ready for purchase. What a steal!

I got ALL of these fruits and vegetables for $8.60! No joke!!!!!!!

Avacados,mangoes,papaya,plantains,bananas,tomatoes,carrots peas and green peppers oh my!

Our temporary home away from home

We've been in Cuenca, Ecuador for a few weeks now and feel quite at home. We are enjoying the pleasant weather, the beautiful mountain views of the Andes and immersing in the culture of Ecuador. As budget travelers, one of the most important decisions we make is concerning housing. Since we planned on staying put for awhile, we decided on a short term apartment rental. Because Cuenca, Ecuador has become one of the most popular retirement destinations as well as being a must on the tourist circuit, it was very difficult to find a rental to accommodate our budget. Typically you can find a short term furnished rental between $250- $500. When we were here a year and a half ago, we had no problem renting an apartment and we paid $500 for the whole month. This time around there was nothing available in our price range at the time we needed it. Needless to say, we had to go with what we could get and ending up spending a little bit more than we wanted to again. We ended up finding our rental on Airbnb.com. I highly recommend it as your first resource when looking for short term rental. The site is secure, trusted and easy to use. Owner's of properties have listings online with photos and amenities as well as price per night, per week and per month. You can communicate via email with the owner to ask questions or even call them. You reserve the property of your choice by paying for the full rate by credit card. We've used this site several times and have been very satisfied. The apartment we are renting is a colonial style duplex in a quiet residential area. It's in a great location and the duplex has an electric security fence and an alarm. Although Cuenca is considered a safe area it's still nice to have the peace of mind. It is Ecuadorean owned and the hosts are very hospitable and accommodating. Here's the link to the website and listing of our temporary home if anyone is interested : https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1252433?guests=4&s=0QAb

We negotiated with the owner on the monthly rate and ended up paying $900 for the month, which comes out to be $30 a day. Once again, for a family of five traveling, it's almost impossible to find a hostel at that price, so we took it. For our second month in Ecuador, we did find an even cheaper rental, but I will share that in the near future.

28 hours on a bus and we finally made it to Cuenca, Ecuador

The next stop on our itinery is Cuenca, Ecuador. We hopped on a bus and traveled north on a 15 hour bus ride. The bus company we feel has the best service and safety for the money is called Cruz Del Sur. The buses are clean, have a bathroom, and the seats recline "semi- cama", which is like a recliner chair. They also show movies and give you a hot dinner. It's very similar to traveling by plane, except it takes a lot longer. We paid $36 per person. We did look into flights to Cuenca and the best deal we found at the time was around $250 per person. Since we are budget travelers we decided to torture ourselves for a total of 28 hours via bus. We stopped in a town called Piura which we had been to before. We didn't love the city enough to pay $100 for a 2 star hotel for the night, so we kept going. We arrived in Piura at 7a.m. and got on the next bus at 9:00a.m. This bus was not as fancy, but it was fairly clean and comfortable. The tickets cost us $13 each person and took us over the Ecuadorean border in 8 hours. Ok, so five more hours to get to our destination. We arrive at the bus stop in Loja, Ecuador at 5:30 p.m. check the bus schedule to see when the buses to Cuenca are leaving. Unfortunatley, the last one is leaving in 10 minutes. We buy our tickets,which cost $4 each, grab dinner to go and literally run to the bus and jump on. We finally arrive to Cuenca at 11:00p.m. It's nice to be on our feet and off the bus. Which we never had to ride a bus again!

Cuenca,Ecuador another expat haven

We stayed in Cuenca , Ecuador for 11 days. Cuenca is a charming , colonial city which it's historic area  is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of the buildings date back to the 1500's and the streets are cobblestone and narrow. It has a small town feel even though there are 330,000 people living in Cuenca. We rented an apartment  in a hundred year old  building for 10 days overlooking the Tomebamba River for $280 . If we had decided to stay for one month the rent would have only cost $500 which includes utilities and satellite tv. We found housing to be extremely affordable in Ecuador. You can rent a beautiful apartment in the historic area, which is the center of town , for $400 a month utilities included plus maid service once a week, plus free continental breakfast every morning. This apartment has high ceilings with tin tiles, arched doorways and a balcony overlooking the main square. We met some expats  from Canada who were renting this particular apartment. Everywhere we went we met Americans who had retired and decided to move to Ecuador due to the low cost of living and low cost health care. Most of these people had never even been to Ecuador. After researching and of course probably reading "International Living", they had decided to sell most of their things and move to Ecuador to live comfortably during their retirement years. Some people that we met were very young and just wanted to live a better quality  life than they were  in the United States. International Living Magazine has deemed Ecuador the #1 Retirement Haven. After being in Ecuador for almost a month now, I truly understand why. I think if you lived on a  budget, for two people,  you could live comfortably on less than $1000 a month. This would include rent, utilities, food, health care, transportation and entertainment. Most people who live in Cuenca use public transportation or walk, so this would be the trade off. I think you may even find that you could live off of $600 if you were really smart with your money. It is very difficult to find housing in the U.S. for under $600. The trade off would be your location and safety. We all know how much health care costs in the US, the price alone is killing people.In Cuenca you can chose the hospital you want to affiliate with and sign up for their plan, the cost is generally under $100 a month for a family of four. This is just another reason why someone may chose to live in Ecuador. It has been interesting meeting all these people who are truly happy living in a 3rd world country, living a better life than they would coming from a 1st world country.

-Rent  a two bedroom apartment for $400 utilities and satellite tv included plus weekly maid service

-Go to the central market and buy a weeks worth of organically grown papayas, banana's, tomatoes ,onions and avocados for $4.00

- Have lunch at a neighborhood restaurant , hot vegetable soup, stewed beef , white rice, salad and fresh squeezed juice for $1.50

-Fill up your gas tank for your car for  $1.48 a gallon

-Go to the Museum of Contemporary Art for  free

-Stay at a four star hotel for $20 a night including breakfast

- Take a taxi anywhere in the city for  $1.00

After 10 days we hopped on another bus for 8 hours and headed north to Quito, Ecuador. I was a little nervous because the elevation in Quito is 9350 feet and a few of us had suffered altitude sickness at 7330 feet in Arequipa ,Peru. When we arrived it was a little hard to breath but it was mainly because ths sidewalks were very hilly and it was a struggle to climb uphill with a stroller. After a few days we had all acclimated and were actually ok with the high elevation.


Quito  has a well preserved historical center and was one of the first UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES in the world. The  streets were narrow and cobblestone and the architecture was beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We had an opportunity to go to the equator which was about 30 km from Quito. There  was a bus that took us to  this attraction called "Mitad del  Mundo" which means" middle of the Earth" and we actually had to pay to get in. Someone had turned this piece of land into the Disneyland  of the Equator. There were souvenir shops and restaurants and even roaming alpacas. This is the monument they had built to show the line of the equator. Unfortunately, after we had visited this place, we found out that the equator was actually 240 meters from this monument. We had been suckered into a tourist trap! But , considering we had been traveling for almost four months and this was maybe our first or second time being lured into the a "touristy" attraction , I'd say we've done pretty good!