Chocolate - thrice in a day! (okay, maybe four times, but who'scounting?!)

     Hi, All, Stephanie here. I had such a lovely birthday with Paul, Cael and Lumia and got to do some teleconferencing with the BEAM team; Janna, with cameos by Gpa Steve and Gma Jody; and the Zimmers. Thanks for making the time to keep in touch - it helps all of us deal with homesickness, that's for sure. I also had many greetings via the book of faces and felt well-loved!
     Okay...I'm sure you're wondering exactly how we could possibly enjoy chocolate three times in one day. When I traveled with Andi, Kay, Missy and Martha in Germany, the Czech Republic and to Sweden, we made sure we had multivitamins (aka chocolate) and calcium (aka ice cream) as much as possible. Well, my friends, we fulfilled our quota today!
     Our first stop was the Fatima Chocolate factory. We have been using this brochure for walking tours around Cuenca. The descriptions aren't super accurate, so we've encountered some issues. (And, they all say to start at 9a, which really has just not happened too often. We are up by then, certainly, but fed, sunscreened, dressed and out the door...not so much) Back to our day...we got to the factory to take a tour and there was no one around. But, there was a cute old lady with four buckets full of liquid chocolate outside the door. My goodness did that smell wonderful. We debated and walked around the block to see if there was a "real" entrance, which there wasn't so we just went in. Someone graciously gave us a tour (in Spanish so we understood about 10% of it) and sold us some pure chocolate. She showed us the bags that the cocoa beans come in, the ovens where they are baked, the ladies who painstakingly shake the nut out of the shells and the processors that create the liquid cocoa. One of the ladies working on separating the meat from the shells was stomping on the beans with her shoes. I suppose that's a bit like how wine was once made...that's chocolate #1. Bitter, as it were.
     We walked into town via upscale artisanal shops featuring an Ecuadorian photographer's Iceland photo exhibit, Ikat (the local weave in this region) scarves, ceramics and a silver filigree shop. Everyone was hungry and lunch was had. I again had the menu del dia, which today included vegetable soup, German sausages and potato salad and the postre was chocolate ice cream. I shared #2 chocolate and calcium with the other family members.
     Things shut down between about 1 and 3p so we were looking for something to do while it was quiet, and we found a museum showing the renovation of a convent. Questions flew at us: what does a nun do, could we be nuns, why did they kill Jesus, what's the difference between a nun and a priest, why is this baby Jesus laying on a pink bed in a frilly dress?
     Chocolate #3: Tutto Freddo. I'm not sure why we waited this many days for this one - their helado (ice cream) is Out. Of. This. World. Especially the maracuya (passionfruit). I, of course, had chocolate with nuez (nuts) along with the maracuya. Lu had a chocolate cone, Cael and a chocolate shake and Paul had lime and maracuya. Enough of those multivitamins...
     We wandered around town a bit more and went through the CEMUART, which was similar to the market Paul described earlier with vegetables on one floor, meat on another and various and sundry other items in the back hallways. And, I guess this would now be Chocolate #4 because one of the vendors gave us a piece of milk chocolate to try when we bought some of the fruit and nut nougat she was selling.
     Now, we're at home awaiting stir fried vegetables with rice. We are looking forward to road trips on Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday to village artisanal towns and Thursday to the Incan ruins. Sunday begins two weeks of touring up the avenue of volcanos - Ambato for Carnaval, Banos near a live volcano, a hacienda near Cotapaxi and then the Amazon for four days. We finish off our time with a week in Quito.  Looking forward to our continued adventures. We love to hear from you, please drop us a line and let us know how you're doing!
     Love from SPCL