When we last wrote, we were in Cuenca. Our last few days in Cuenca were fun. We happened upon a race/festival, which was fun. We found a great art gallery/cafe on the riverside, and we went to a museum with fabulous gardens outside.
Next we moved on to Vilcabamba, a small town in the ¨valley of longevity,¨ where people supposedly live to be over 100. After a first night at a hostal we didn´t love, we moved to Cabañas Rio Yambala, a hotel with cabañas (or cabins) overlooking a beautiful mountainous vista. 
The hotel is part of a nature reserve, and the owners own a big chunk of land, including part of a national park. We LOVED our first few days there. We spent them hiking, reading on our porch, swinging in the hammock, and eating meals with the owners (an American and a British ex-pat) and their two kids, who had the strangest English accents I have ever heard. It was an idyllic setting with tons of hiking, set right on a river. We were so happy that when we found out that the owners were looking for volunteers, we jumped at the thought. We decided that we would volunteer by hiking and cleaning up the trails, and rewriting trail maps, and in exchange we would get a free place to stay in their ¨vacation cottage¨ a bit up the road. And we would cook our own food in the vacation cottage kitchen, which sounded great to me after eating in restaurants for months. The next day we went to the big city (an hour away) to buy groceries, and that night, we moved into their ¨vacation cottage.¨
The cottage was absolutely FULL of live and dead bugs, a scorpion, dirt, rat poison (for the mice that were supposedly there), and the trash of the last occupant. What it did not have was an oven or a refrigerator. The yeast i had bought to make challah was going to have to wait, and we had to give our refrigerator goods to the owner to put in his kitchen. We were so disappointed and disgusted that we decided that we might leave the very next day. We spent the night with bugs flying all over us, sad and disheartened.
The next morning, things seemed a bit better (they always do in the morning). We decided to spend the day cleaning the house from top to bottom. We spent 8 hours removing bugs, sweeping and mopping the floors, cleaning the countertops, and getting rid of garbage. By the end of the day, the house wasn´t such a scary place after all. We also made pan-cornbread, an adaptation of our oven recipe, which turned out great! Although we weren´t thrilled with the situation, it seemed managable, and we decided to give it a try. 
That very night, Charley (the owner) showed up at our door with 2 guys, who he said were going to stay there too. I was worried--after all that work we had put in, what if we didn´t like them? But the first guy walked in wearing some kind of a ¨latke night¨shirt, which made me much more hopeful. One of the guys, Aaron, is from St Louis Park, and he and benjie knew lots and lots of people in common!! The other, Dan, had actually emailed benjie about a month before, having never met him. He had worked the past year at AVODAH, a Jewish service corp, and somehow he had benjie in his address book. He had sent out an email to his entire address book saying that he was going to South America. Benjie almost wrote back to him, but decided not to b-c the address was his work one, and Benjie figured he´d never get it. And then, randomly, that was the guy we were going to be living with!!! Very small world.
In another interesting turn of events, a neighbor´s dog has decided that benjie is his master. Although we don´t feed the dog, he sleeps outside our house, and he waits loyally for us to wake up in the morning. He comes with us on hikes, and to anywhere else we go. This morning he followed us on an hour walk into town, and Benjie had to fight to keep him from getting on the bus with us. He is a very sweet, playful dog, and we are sad to be leaving him. We tried returning him to his actual owners a few times, but he just leaves again (dogs aren´t tied up here mostly). So until we leave he´s ours.
So, for the last week, we have been volunteering and living with Aaron and Dan, and spending time with our dog. We´ve had some great times (it´s been fun having dinner all together), and benjie and i have enjoyed hiking around. But we also aren´t thrilled with the volunteering--in the end it seems more like barter labor than volunteering. We get a room and we do all the things that they haven´t had time to do for the past 15 years. It seems our trail work is benefitting mostly only their own guests, rather than anyone who wants to use them (the trail maps are only for their guests, apparently). So, today we are moving onto the Peruvian coast.
As for the postcards, we have sent out a bunch, and will be sending more. There was a slight delay, as the post office in vilcabamba does not actually sell stamps, and the place that sells stamps has weird and inconvenient hours. But we think we might finally have enough stamps, and we hope to send out the rest of the postcards today.
We have uploaded a bunch of pictures, but for some reason can´t put all of them in the entry. So feel free to check them out in the folder marked Cuenca/Vilcabamba.
Onto Peru!
-R
Love,
Dad