Here I am again in my little corner of paradise – Cotacachi, Ecuador. I arrived a couple of days ago. The flight with Air Canada was uneventful with a short layover in Houston before landing in Quito just after midnight on the 28th. I checked in to the Hotel Mariscal Sucre near the airport and settled in for a short nap. A nice breakfast was delivered right to my room at about 7:30. Not bad for $35.00/night…
My regular driver, Guillermo, sent his brother Fernando to pick me up at 9:00 for the 1.5 hour drive back to Cotacachi. I booked the same Airbnb we stayed in last visit and my host was waiting outside when we pulled in. The apartment is located right on the central town square directly across from the church above a pharmacy. It is within walking distance to everything.
After getting settled in to my cozy apartment and a long nap, I went for a walkabout to see what has changed about town and to pick up a few necessities – wine, coffee, water… I met up with the ‘strawberry lady’ on a street corner and bought some strawberries and grapes, then headed over to the TIA supermarket for water and wine. The supermarket now has self checkout stands. They are kind of useless here as everybody mostly pays with cash and the machines aren’t set up to take cash, so a person has to stand by to take your payment. They rarely had more than one register open before, so kind of a waste!
I collected my stuff then went over to Monica’s Supermercado to get some of my favourite coffee. Monica’s has a lot of items in her store that are brought in from the states, especially for the US expats that live here. On my way back to my apartment, I stopped in at Doc’s Bar for a beer and bumped into our dear friend Don Sims. We had a couple of beers and then headed over to the Sub’s Station for a bite to eat. My pretzel burger was delicious!
And so my first day back in Cotacachi came to a fitting end with food and drinks with a good friend.