March

Bill has never made chili before but thought now was a good time to get cooking.  Our local S & L Artisan Meat host an annual chili cook-off on their farm.  So Billy Boy decides that bacon, bacon, and bacon chili is just the ticket since who does not love bacon? Plus we get wonderful bacon from S & L Artisan Meats. Well, I was not sure and even suggest Don Billy (his new name)  use my USA 2 Alarm Chili packets. But, NO  he was creating his own masterpiece.  So he uses the bacon plus 3 other types of secret meat and 3 different types of chili peppers. He will not divulge his secret recipe even to me. My concern is that it will be way too spicy for folks but they love his unique chili. The total entries were 14 and each person was given 1  ticket to vote for their favorite.  Everyone got to taste the different chili and I admit that some of the chili  I declare as darn tasty. Now you may want to know did I vote for Bill’s? No, my vote went to Santiago the chef of Incanto since I did not think it was ethical to vote for my husband. So hands down Billy Boy is the winner. I am so proud of him! He won a basket of fruit, an S & L gift certificate plus a fun cake designed by Incanto. Bill would not let me cut that cake for days and I kept telling him it was going to get dusty. Finally, we cut the delicious cake, and was wow it is still moist from the protection of the layer of fondant which we peeled off. Bill is already planning another unique chili for the contest next year. Everyone had a great time! There is always something going on in little Cotacachi which we call the Mayberry of the Andes.

Now just a quick note of why my blog is so behind well we have had 3 visitors this year….yeah plus life is busy caring for Winky my blind Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. I am in the process of writing a children’s book about Winky. Watch for updates on my blog as I attempt to backtrack our adventures.

Ok, Ok, Ok I know that I am so far behind on my blog.  But retirement is so darn busy here in little Cotacachi. Who could have imagined? I have already written about Billy Boy’s escapade with US healthcare in February. So the following is an attempt to write the happenings that occurred during February and March.

First of all, there are always parties or celebrations for just about anything you can imagine. Humm just any reason to party. What would February be without a Valentine’s Party? The Land of the Sun Hotel had a sweetheart valentine’s dinner. The romantic centuries-old hotel was all decked out for gringo’s and their sweethearts. The owners TJ and Morgan have become friends of ours, and we had a beautiful evening. Then in March, we went along with our friends to a Saint Patrick’s Day party complete with corn beef and cabbage but missing the green beer. Yes, we celebrate the typical US events plus join in the Ecuadorian parties. Maybe that is why we are so busy.

The slide show below captures some of the highlights of the celebrations.

In March, we also made the 2-hour drive to Quito which is the capital of Ecuador simply for Bill’s first visit to a vascular doctor. So why not make this a fun trip? We spent the night at the beautiful Hotel Mansion del Angel, the sister hotel of La Mirage located in  Cotacachi. Of course, the hotel offered all the amenities that one could imagine in a historical setting.

After Bill’s doctor’s appointment in Quito, we got caught in a hail storm. At first, I thought who is throwing rocks at our taxi and why? Only to realize that those hard white stones were actually ice pellets that rained down from the heavens. The bombardment of frozen pellets of rain was as thick as snow on the ground. I did not know they had hail storms in Ecuador so reminded me of the good old storms of Texas.

Lost in Old Town

The Mansion del Angel Hotel is situated close to quaint historic “Old Town” which we love to explore. In fact, we wanted to go to a little shop that had an outdoor lamp we desired for our patio. As luck would have it all the streets near “Old Town” were closed for families to ride their bicycles free from traffic. A very nice thing for Quito to do but for us, it meant no taxi would be available. The hotel staff informed us that it was only a short walk and we would not have any problems. So off we went, and we walked, and we walked, and we walked only to discover we as still lost? Finally, after asking numerous folks for directions in our limited Spanish, we found the shop we were looking seeking. Exhausted we stopped for lunch. After we had rested, we went again on foot to locate the hotel. Surely this would not be a problem since now we had our bearing. Of so wrong lost again on foot and remember Bill had a DVT in his leg. Finally, Billy Boy remembered he had GPS on his cell phone. So we were able to find out way back to the hotel and were exhausted. That evening we had a wonderful dining experience as well as another adventure in another restaurant the next night.

The slideshow is a brief glimpse of our Quito adventures.

Dinner in Quito

One of the nice things about traveling to Quito is the excellent restaurants and shopping available. I think of Quito as a small New York City. One of the restaurants boasted that they served US Angus Rib Eye Steak. However, it turned out that they were out of the coveted steak that is a Texan’s dream. So we had to settle for a different Ecuadorian-style steak. However, they had baked potatoes with cheese which I love! Oh, my that is what I wanted! The potato turned out to be a boiled potato smothered in the bland Ecuadorian white cheese that I consider tasteless. I ended up taking my steak back to the hotel for the resident dog Princesa. We decided to go to their small bar for a drink. The bartender was also the chef, and he said when he got the US Angus Steak in he would call us. Sure enough, true to his word he did call a few months ago, and Bill and our taxi driver Freddy went and had a good US Black Angus rib-eye steak.

Another restaurant we went to was perfect, and the highlight was that they made ice cream tableside with a little portable canister filled with nitrogen. Now, this is a new experience for us, and not only pleasing to watch the result was yummy.

My April blog will be about our beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Winky Boy, and how he nearly died.

Hugs to family and friends

Texas Annie Ecuador