Rain In Cuenca and Other Small Things

July 17, 2025

Cuenca boasts some of the most beautiful colonial architecture in the country, and the indigenous culture with all its vibrant clothing, art, language, and people, is very much a part of daily life. Now, after more than a year of living on the Ecuadorian coast, visiting the mountain city of Cuenca has become something I look forward to as much as I once looked forward to visiting Ecuador for the first time.

The cities on the coast where I live and spend time, Salinas and Guayaquil, have warm weather and beaches, but they have almost none of the culture or architecture you’ll find in Cuenca. The coastal region and the Andean highlands are two starkly different worlds.

The most jarring difference for me personally is the expat population in Cuenca. Every time I visit, I’m shocked at how many foreigners are there from all different countries, and, particularly of note, all different ages. Some of them are obviously tourists, but I overhear many talking about their life in Cuenca and what they’ve been doing during however many years they’ve lived there. Here in Salinas, there is a sizable expat community, but I am not a part of it. The foreigners here on the coast are mostly retired, conservative, and tend to stick together, gathering at church-related events or other organized social gatherings. The ones I’ve met are all wonderful people, but it’s not my scene.

When I visit Cuenca, it is fascinating and exciting to see expats who are my age or younger, out and about, living their lives. The feeling is difficult to describe when I see them. Sometimes I want to go up and say hello, but so far I haven’t. Cuenca is not my city; it’s their place, and I don’t want to be the expat who runs up to them excitedly to compare notes and ask all the obvious questions about how long they’ve lived there, where they’re from, and so on.

Cuenca is a true global destination. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage-listed city and home to a variety of cultures and people. The city is big enough that I can enjoy a sense of anonymity when I’m walking around taking photos, and it’s far enough away from my previous home of Loja that the chances of running into anyone I know are almost zero.

For these reasons, most of my interactions in Cuenca are with local, Cuencano, Ecuadorians.

On my most recent trip, I found an antique store on a side street I hadn’t been down before. It was a simple door in an otherwise featureless white earthen wall, except for a small sign above it. Antique stores are rare here, and I hadn’t seen one for a long time, so I was excited to go inside. It was a tiny space, about the size of a small bedroom, packed with glass cases and shelves full of fascinating things. The owner was standing right there when I walked in, and I guess he could tell I was the embodiment of his ideal demographic. He was very welcoming and started to show me things, telling me in Spanish what they were. I could follow almost everything he said and managed to have a reasonably good, fun conversation with him.

There were actually a lot of things in his store I would have purchased, but the most fascinating to me were little figurines, just like the ones I’ve seen in local museums. He assured me they were genuine and ancient, but of course I had no way of verifying this. They did look extremely old, and they were all still covered in dirt like they had either just recently been dug up, or had just recently been deliberately covered in dirt. Then, of course, there are the ethical questions: if they are indeed ancient, where did they come from? Were they looted? Having read about it later, the answer to that question is almost certainly yes. At the time, I didn’t know so I didn’t buy any.

I thanked the man for his tour and conversation, and as I stepped outside, I took a photo of the store with my camera (below). Then, as I often do, I also wanted a phone photo just for reference. I was holding up my phone when an old man who I’d noticed shuffling toward me said hello and asked me what kind of phone I had. This guy was about 60 and seemed friendly enough. He wore old-fashioned black dress shoes, brown trousers, and what was almost certainly a handmade jumper with colourful stripes knitted into it. He was local, and I had a very difficult time understanding his Spanish, but I was concentrating.

When I’m speaking to locals, I always try not to talk about my cameras, and especially avoid talking about their value. My cameras are not expensive by U.S. standards, they are all either used, refurbished, or vintage. Here though, depending on who you’re talking to, the dollar amount you might blurt out could seem almost unimaginable. I was thinking about this when he asked about my phone, so I awkwardly attempted in bad Spanish: “Oh, it’s nothing special, it’s just a normal phone. It’s a common one,” I stammered.

The man said to me, “For me and my friends, your phone is not common. The people I know don’t have a phone like this. You are lucky.”

I just about died of embarrassment, both because I knew what he was telling me was true, and also because I knew I should have simply told him it was a Samsung, then immediately changed the topic. I looked down. I noticed his pants were dirty, and he had rolled up the bottoms to keep them from dragging in the puddles. He had caught me off guard and I had slipped. I was trying to think of a graceful way to save the situation, and maybe he saw my discomfort, as he asked me where I was going next. I told him I was going to visit the big cathedral, which wasn’t true, but I definitely wasn’t going to talk about street photography or my bag full of cameras.

He liked my answer and wished me well. I saw his eyes were kind, but tired. In formal Spanish I told him it was very nice to meet him, and my body language tried to convey the apology I didn’t dare deliver for fear of making the situation even worse. I headed off in the direction of the cathedral, trying to regain my composure but cringing the whole way.

That evening, on the way back to my room, I stopped at a small supermarket and was wandering the aisles, which were narrow and tall. I happened to be going through the chocolate section when a little girl saw me and asked,
“¿Señor, me puede dar ese chocolate, por favor?”
She was pointing, asking for a chocolate she couldn’t reach. I gave it to her. She beamed at the chocolate in her hands and, with hardly a glance at me, skipped off around the corner to find her parents, offering a tiny, squeaky, “¡gracias!”

I was a Señor!

All was right with my world again, and I happily walked out into the rainy, cobbled street.