GREAT SHOPPING ADVENTURES

During our time here in Cuenca we have developed some nice relationships with local merchants. Most small shops in town or stalls at the market are run by the owner-merchant, and sometimes artist. One example of this is the jewelry shop we often visit near Carol's bookstore on Hermano Miguel. The lady seems to live there with her husband and small son and the room that opens to the street is where she sells the jewelry. She makes lots of it herself and is a superb macrame artist. Many of her pieces incorporate seeds or shells. She showed us one elaborate necklace that she "wove" out of macrame, which took her a month. This woman always has a smile and a cheerful disposition. She even spotted us on the street one day, as she was walking with her son, and stopped us to say hello and let us know that she had many new and beautiful things at her store. Since we are leaving soon, we stopped in today to get her photo (and yes, bought the earrings she is holding up).

Her husband is equally nice. Last time we were in the store I was looking at some lovely silver jewelry in a pelican design. We struck up a conversation asking what the Ecuadorian name for pelican was and after this the husband went in the back room for a design book and told us that this particular design was very ancient from a tribe on the coast, north of Guayaquil. Every time we visit this store we have long conversations with these two, even though our understanding isn't great. They are so warm hearted. I never did find out her name, or remember the name of the shop!

Another favorite merchant is in the Casa Mujeres artisan market. She is the woman we bought rugs and a poncho from (see Textiles blog here http://ajstephens.blogspot.com/2008/12/textiles.html). We went back to her this week and she lit up with a big grin. Of course we came away with another rug and a wool scarf!

One day Jim and I were walking downtown on Avenida Tarqui. He was wearing his Panama hat, as always. As we passed an indigenous hat shop (these are the hats you see the ladies wearing - they are tall Panamas in the Fedora style and are treated with something to make them very stiff) an older man grabbed Jim's arm, pointed to his hat and to a sign on the stairs that said "Panama Hats, 2nd floor." The man was quite insistent that we go up and I thought to myself, "if this was Mexico there is no way I would follow a complete stranger up a dark stairwell." However, this was Cuenca and we followed him. It became apparent that the man couldn't talk (no voicebox). He led us up a steep stairwell and onto a small landing where there was a locked door. He unlocked the door and led us into a small showroom of lovely Panama hats. He tried to get Jim to try some on, but Jim prefers the Optimo style and this man only had the Fedora style. Once we got this point across, the man picked a hat off the rack and set it on my head. Not only was the hat EXACTLY what I would have picked out for myself, it fit me perfectly. It's a FINO quality hat - so fine that it feels like soap and you can't see any light through it. As we carried out the transaction, Jim had me ask the man how old he was. He wrote down 83 on a scrap of paper. Jim had me tell him that he was 73 and the man laughed and called him a baby. He took out a nice little box and showed me how the hat would roll up into it. He wrote my name on the box and "in memory of a beautiful lady."

Later that afternoon as we were relaying this story to Carol at the bookstore she told us that he was the most famous panama hat maker in Cuenca. He is featured on posters and in the paper all the time. His name is Roberto Pulla. He had lost his voice to cancer, not from smoking but, they think, from the fibers in the panama hats. He is obviously much beloved, as we saw many people greet him and embrace him.

One of my favorite artists in Cuenca is Eduardo Vega, one of Ecuador's most famous artists, whose medium is ceramic tile. Last year when we visited Cuenca we visited his workshop in Turi, a hillside town near Cuenca. I was so impressed with some of his designs that I had the workshop make some tiles specifically for our shower enclosure back home. This year we discovered a pottery factory not far from Chuck and Nancy's condo and learned that most of the dishes were designed by Vega. We toured the factory and discovered the "seconds" department. Although we spent some time in the seconds department, it wasn't enough, so Nancy and I went back another day on a hunt for cappuccino cups (and whatever else caught our eyes). We couldn't tell why most of these items were seconds but appreciated the great prices! Nancy found some wonderful cups in a cheery orange red pattern. Here she is smirking about the excellent deals she got and imagining how great cappuccino was going to look in her new cups. (Update - Nancy went back today and got 2 sizes of plates, a lovely platter and some more cups in this design. We christened them for dinner and they worked just fine).

So, these are just a few of the fun shopping experiences we have had. I will miss some of my favorite merchants in Cuenca, as well as the one of a kind shopping experiences.

I hope you enjoyed shopping with me.

Audrey