Kookaburra Cafe and Accommodation

If nudity offends you, please turn away...

Kookaburra's most shameless carrot lets it all hang out!

KOOKABURRA IS TAKING A HOLIDAY - Back at work Thursday, Jan 5th!

 

The Bluefields are going cloud-watching from Monday December 19th but first we want to thank the Friends of Kookaburra for another wonderful year of community! We wish you all a happy 2012 -may it be full of lots of love, laughter and infinite creative delight.

Just in case you missed Kookaburra Cafe's Vegan version of the Village People's YMCA, then check out this youtube link for a good laugh. Happy Holidays!

(n.b. Kookaburra B&B will still be open for accommodation inquiries...)

CASA DE LAS PALOMAS: 100 Years of anything but Solitude

Despite its designation as a UNESCO World Cultural Treasure and its reputation as a Spanish Colonial jewel, Cuenca is actually a city of Modernity.  Each new epoch of the Modern World has left an indelible stain upon the city’s exquisite architectural streetscapes, a delightfully mottled veneer one could better describe as Eclecticism.  Charged with the listing of Historic buildings and more, the Institute of Cultural Heritage (INPC), Ecuador's premier Conservation body, has a number of diverse projects on the go throughout Southern Ecuador.  As well as restoring old mansions, they work on sites ranging from Nationally important rural Pre-Canari settlements to 'almost forgotten' Ateliers in the streets and laneways of cities like Cuenca.  
The INPC employs an array of Specialists from Sociologists to paint technologists and their Cuenca headquarters, located naturally, in one of the most unique Mansions in the city, is a hub of activity. Visiting this old Mansion, I am transfixed by the elaborate murals of its original owner, Artist, Joaquin Rendon Araujo. In its heyday, the Institute’s headquarters was a modern and highly individualized family residence built about 1910 and boasting the latest in brass finishings and European wallpapers. Senor Rendon hand painted romantic landscapes and figures upon stairwells and walls. And he painted Doves, lots of them, hence the building’s name, House of the Doves – Casa de las Palomas.  One of its most elaborate rooms overlooks Benigno Malo, and is floor to ceiling hand decorated pressed metal.  Imagine High French Court meets Spanish Republican Adobe in far-flung empire.

I step off the footpath and enter Casa de las Palomas' zaguan, or entryway, cobbled with river stones and ox vertebra. In front of me, in stark contrast to the dark arcade, I am struck with the vision of a cheerful sunlit courtyard garden. I don’t know when this garden bed was laid out but the flowers thriving there are ones you’d expect in an English Cottage garden – Cosmos, Hollyhock, Rose and Jasmine:  Sun worshippers every one of them!

From the ground floor of the Casa, I climb a solid wooden staircase that is decorated with a High Romantic Bavarian-like Pastoral narrative, to the next level.  I take the second door and enter a large and airy ‘French Court’ style Salon.  In this Artist’s folly of a house, I am enjoying the passing Colonial experience and the Vernacular of the Republican Era, as well as a little taste of La Belle Époque or the Age of Enlightenment.  It’s a satisfying experience for a Décor devotee.  From my perch, I applaud Senor Rendon, not for his Modernism but for his very proto-Postmodernism!

With his death in 1917, the Artist’s bohemian home began a long journey, passing through many hands, becoming in turn a casino, school, candle factory, drum factory and soft drink factory. I think it was a soft drink factory at the same time it housed the printing presses of el Diario del Sur, the Southern Daily.  Oh, and for another short while, it was Senora Aurora Calle’s Inn.

By 1987, now rundown but with promise, the house attracted the attention of the Institute’s first Sub Director, Susana Gonzalez, who raised sufficient funds with the help of the Central Bank and the National Cultural Council, to buy the building for the INPC.  Originally intended at that time to promote the study of Architectural Restoration, it has achieved that and more. Casa de las Palomas in the twenty-first century, is an Icon of Urban renewal. A visit to Ecuador’s Institute of Cultural Heritage has me thinking of how I can live and work from a more creative center where form and function serve each other well and perhaps like Senor Rendon, where form serves even that little bit more flamboyantly.  His house has certainly proved to be a remarkably versatile building and a popular site for commerce, advocacy and residential life, and that for more than one hundred years!

(While it's not officially open to the public, you may get past the guard... it's on the east side of Benigno Malo between Juan Jaramillo and Presidente Cordova. Don't say I sent you!)

Nine Beautiful Things From Cuenca.

 

1. The city's Western flank as seen from a very high place, late in the afternoon of Easter Sunday. Those trees snaking through the centre of the photograph are following the Yanuncay River and to the right, the Tomebamba.

 

2. The Cathedral and an Evensong sky. 

 

3. The Sun playing ballgames.

4. A hand of subversive bananas.

5. A vendor with a peacock feather in her cap pushing Capulis past Kookaburra.

6. A beautiful man captured cleaning windows.

 

7. One Colibri and one Fuschia branch, a fleeting conversation.

 

 

 

8. Aries birthday celebration with good food in the hands of good friends.

 

 

9. And form and function, an uncompromisingly masterful carving from a different era.  

Enjoy!

 

A year of waiting, tables.

The Summer Solstice clicked over last week making it one year, more or less, since Kookaburra's doors opened for the first time. At 7am, a nice man named Larry came in, sat down and ordered the first breakfast. Our small business was off to a frying start.

Since that time, we have made so many, many wonderful, gorgeous, outrageous, fun, kind, funny, thoughtful and loving new old friends. Happy New Year to you all - glad we've got you into our lives! 

... thank you 2010. Thank you to our lovely customers  and their real 'round table' sense of community.  Thank you to our workplace colleagues and our Food, Music and Art collaborators. Thank you to the Givers of Plants, our green friends. Thank you to all the creatures that share our lovely sunny courtyard. It has served us well over the year! Thank you Sun and thank you to our friends from old and far away.  Enjoy a few photos, an inadequate record really where one face must represent dozens if you are to get a real sense of the true dimension of Kookaburra's Family.

 

 

 
 



 

Cuenca for Dummies: What do you mean they're only mannequins?

As you make your way around Cuenca, you come across people who are very stiff and formal as if they have spent their entire lives in tiny boxes watching the world go by.

You also come across people who are a little mysterious and who obviously prefer to keep a wrap on their private lives despite appearing 'open'.

And then, without warning, you're confronted with sheer exhibitionism, people who will get upfront and personal with very little prompting.

In Cuenca though, it's usually difficult to get under someone's skin to really see what's going on - unless of course, they have a bad case of Necrotising fasciitis, like this poor dude.

Kookaburra: Before and After!

Many people we have met at Kookaburra, have asked if we had to do much to bring the building up to scratch and 'hell yeah', our stock response, always sounded like an understatement. Here are a few of our 'before and after' photos to demonstrate why that is so.

Let's get straight into the mood and start with a rare 'renovation' photo of me smiling.

Why am I smiling? I can't remember - a gesture for the photographer perhaps - a front for the nervous, silent question: "How and why did you actually climb all the way up onto that roof?"

We did have a vision. This is sort of what it looked like.

...clean lines, safe stairs - all in all a long way from this, our reality.

The dunny had been cannily fitted in under the stairs. It had to go although we lamented its loss. No we didn't, just kidding. In the following photo, you can see the same courtyard, the little one out back where the apartments open onto. After the toilet was removed, we opened up the window spaces and closed off that doorway that you see across the way. 

We originally had six separate small rooms upstairs and downstairs, each with its own door opening out. Now, there are only two doors. We imagined the household's domestic help had always lived in these rear rooms for they were somewhat more ramshackle than the accommodation closer to the street. Closer to the street, there were more indoor bathrooms, there was hot and cold running water, there were light fittings, floor coverings, parlours, stair rails, door handles, lounge rooms, washing machines - and the list of plenty goes on...

Out back, the residents, both upstairs and downstairs, shared the one outside cold water faucet and the one outside toilet -  they had no kitchen or bathroom facilities. It makes you wonder.

But back to the 'after' shot. This is taken from the kitchen of what is now the downstairs apartment. 

This next photo shows the same little courtyard but from the larger courtyard, looking up the zaguan which is the Spanish word for hallway or porch. It was taken on a somewhat sunny day despite 2009's rainy month lasting more than 120 days. We came to regard this prematurely dug trench as our first water feature. 

 

All bad things, just like all good things though, come to an end as this 'after' shot admirably demonstrates.

Next, we move onto the main courtyard where so many readers will have enjoyed a coffee.

 

What? Don't recognise this, this...shell?

Voila! Ain't digital photography grand? Here you can see how we brought those windows down lower so that people sitting at tables inside this room could see into the courtyard.

The next photo shows the rear wall of the courtyard after we had replaced two of the upright columns and partially removed the upstairs balcony. We reluctantly had to reinforce this beautifully revealed adobe block wall with concrete though.

It took a great deal of fine tuning to make this facade seamless and in the process, we learned the value of knowing a few key words in Spanish like 'desplomeado' or 'not plumb'. We learnt that the hard way when some walls got thicker and thicker in the pursuit of a perfectly upright plumb line. That reminds me... at the very beginning of this renovation project, the workers teamed up into pairs and, with hose line, water and chalk, set about finding the one metre line and marking it upon every wall just like a couple of ancient Egyptian workers might have.

 

And now to the Cafe itself. I've decided to show you the transformation in reverse order starting with a photo of how the space looked on roughly Day 300, a few weeks before opening. Note the doorways, the light streaming in from the courtyard, the walls and split levels and false ceilings...

This next photo, while still showing the light and levels, gives you an idea of the process: The messy, gritty detail of that process. 

And this last photo, taken from the same angle, fast rewinds us to, more or less, Day 1. Look! No light, no doorways, no nice wooden floor and definitely no Espresso machine.

It was a big project! We hung around the site everyday and so the wow factor didn't really sink in until much later when we began poring over the photos we had taken religiously at every step. For anyone still interested in more, we've got over a thousand images documenting the changes to these 300 humble square metres of Cuenca. We had our ups and downs but that would appear to be pretty normal for any kind of project. The important thing though? We're still married!!!

An Orchid by any other name...

...is still an Orchid and we saw quite a variety of them today. Ecuagenera is all about Orchids and Ecological Tourism and so it should be in a country with no less than 4000+ orchid species. Adrian and Sybil took Chris and I for a drive out into the country, to the Orchid farm and Retail outlet near Gualaceo.

 

We took a tour of the business's Cultivation poly houses as well as their beautifully landscaped gardens. Our guide was Hugo and he had an exceptionally 'hands on' knowledge of every stage in the process of creating and producing a high quality Orchid. Who would imagine that an Orchid would start its life in "The Matrix"??? This controlled environment (below) is a giant incubator with a very white, sci fi vibe going on.

These thousands of bottles are like hermetically sealed nurseries in which either a sprinkle of seeds, or plant tissue, is being raised in a nutrient rich culture. They can stay in these safe houses for up to two years before being brought into the real world to do battle with sun, air, bacteria and the vibrant animal life milling around it.

It's not a process you can rush either. Hugo told us that between a seed germinating and a plant producing its first flower, five years can pass. So when the horticulturalists have been cross pollinating the different flowers, they must wait a long time before they get to decide which of their 'children' they like best. Then, they can begin the process of cloning the plant, taking tissue cuttings and waiting, waiting, waiting... Orchids, like Roses, take a long time to reproduce. The plant must prove that its next flower is exactly like its parent/sibling/real self.  As each flower can produce up to 20,000 seeds, they just need one perfect bloom to create a commercially viable new Orchid. It's really the stuff of Frankenstein meets Dolly but with a much more colourful outcome.

We weren't surprised but saddened to hear that many of Ecuador's native Orchids are now extinct in the wild and can only be found at Ecuagenera. A priest, Angel Andreetta, was the founder of the collection some 55 years ago and eventually became the chief advisor when his private interest was bought out and a business was begun. The Portilla brothers have been running Ecuagenera - Ecuador's largest orchid exporter - since 1992, employing almost 60 locals. 

We spent a couple of hours getting up front and personal with not only Orchids but with many other beautiful plants like a stunning golden lily and leafy bromeliads and ferns. 

    

Hugo demonstrated the mechanics of a very tiny orchid that mimics the Venus Fly Trap but instead of eating its victim, it only traps the insect for a short while so that it can rattle around and help the pollination process.

This tiny Orchid is growing on top of a leaf. We saw many Orchids living on air alone. They are the World's true Breatharians.

  

Ecuagenera has a showroom on the main road into Gualaceo and it's a very difficult place to rush through if you want to actually buy an Orchid...or two...or four as was our case. It has to be perfect but the problem in deciding this is, they're all perfect, they're all beautiful, they're all natural. It was a great credit to A & S that they went for a walk outside while we spent a second half hour swapping plants and figuring out which ones were best suited to Cuenca's temperatures: Which ones flowered the longest: Which ones were affordable??? A beautiful Orchid will only set you back between $20 and $30 so it wasn't really the cost but the colours.....

 

Ecuagenera is a nice place to visit in the Country. They can be found two kilometres before Gualaceo on the road from Cuenca. The tour costs $3 pp. Their phone number is 07 2255237 if you wanted to check the opening hours before visiting.   We all had a really interesting time, we all bought a plant and then we had lunch at Paute before heading back to Cuenca just in time to get stuck in Peak hour traffic. What a contrast!

Another Leonard Cohen moment in the Museo de las Conceptas...

 

It seems whenever I'm in a church, I think of Leonard Cohen. Saint Leonard maybe? If people like that became statues of contemplation for future generations, they might be posed something like this.  I've decided this is really Saint Joan of Arc looking suspiciously like a rock star.  

The Order of the Immaculate Conception, Cuenca branch, was first housed in the finest mansion in the city in 1559, a gift from a society lady as the dowry for her three daughters so they wouldn't turn out totally irreverent, like me. A convent was eventually completed by 1729 which has housed a community of Nuns ever since.  (My) Joan of Arc, seen here doing something like the 'hound dog', is one of their treasures. (I think she is really Saint Rafael....) The building, collectively known as Las Conceptas, receives Heritage and private funds enabling much needed maintenance and restoration of the wings, one of which - the Infirmary - now forms a very lovely little museum. 

 

 

The public wings give the visitor a glimpse of life behind a convent’s walls and, tantalizingly, the closed old Colonial doors with key holes and cracks demand you steal a quick peek in the name of classically guilty Catholic pleasure.... all too much fun.

  

 

 

The Order’s collection is fantastical and quirky and ranges from the exceptionally humble Decorative objets d’art to the full sized contemplative Religious statues.

 

 

 

I recommend a visit and a revisit!

 

 Fundacion Museo de las Conceptas is located in Calle Hermano Miguel 6-33, between Presidente Cordova and Juan Jaramillo. It's opening hours are; Monday - Friday, 9am-6.30pm and Saturdays and Public Holidays, 10am – 1pm.

 

Good staff? Not so hard to come by...

Here's Kookaburra's newest employee, Nancy, concentrating on getting a good coffee out to a couple of notorious customers.

Ok, not exactly the truth: Rich and Nancy aren't that notorious...

Rock my world...

Legends are legends in any part of the world, it seems. This graffiti was photographed at Banos, just a short half hour bus ride from Cuenca. This next shot though is normally what tourists would focus on there.

The church. It's very blue and by contrast, the food is very golden.

...and street food is really tasty. This is a dish of roasted pork and fried potato cakes.

I took my parents there for lunch when they were visiting from Australia.

Supermarkets aren't big over here. It's great that food is still prepared from scratch and readily available to all income brackets. One of the most popular Latin American 'fast foods' is the Tamale.

We serve these Tamales in the cafe - they're from Susana's bakery and are a tasty and complete meal. Susana also bakes heavy loaves of baked grain breads which we serve with natural jams and fresh butter.

Kookaburra sources most of its fresh vegetables from organic and/or local growers, from the markets, the street vendors and friends. Thomas is one such friend. A year ago he built greenhouses especially for Kookaburra. He picks these gorgeous lush tomatoes every Wednesday night to deliver fresh to the cafe on Thursday mornings.

 

We don't want to give too much away about our coffee, but it's good, some say the best in the country. Who am I to disagree? The beans are all grown in the Ecuadoran highlands and roasted in Guayaquil, on the coast, by a family with their roots in Italy. It seems like the European roasting expertise really shows off the Ecuadoran bean. That's Chris making espresso on the Italian machine, Sibilla.

Teas are much more popular among the locals than coffee. This tea is called Horchata and, like Tamales, you'll find variations of the recipe throughout the continent. In Ecuador, the tea is made from fresh flowers and grasses and herbs like carnations and geraniums, amaranth, borage, cedron, chamomile and basil - so it's pink! It's drunk mainly for its medicinal properties. The nuns from the Mariana Sanctuary on the edge of the flower market here in the historic centre, sell their home brew from the tiny door in the wall of their convent. There can be quite a number of people lining up to buy a cup of the healing Horchata. No such miraculous qualities attached to our brew though but you know, it's never too late to start a good rumour. 

Not Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice but....

Jim and Susie and Carol and George are the four wonderful people who run California Kitchen. Yahoo!  Waffle and pancake deprived foodies now have a breakfast haunt on Saturdays.   Here’s a recent photo of Waffle and French Toast I devoured!  

Now that you’re all counting, I ordered Biscuits and Gravy too. It’s a Southern staple I've been told and as they don't come more southern than Australians, I thought it sounded like a bit of me. They’re a small bun with a gossamer-like, ‘melt in your mouth’ texture and a crispier crust served alongside a bowl of meaty gravy. I can really see why people develop a hankering for them.

Yesterday, Jason, Donna, Chris and I worked our way through the entire breakfast menu.  Today, Linda and I could only work our way through a third but that didn't stop us mulling over the idea of hanging around long enough for the Lunch menu to arrive. One of the set breakfasts, the big one, the one with the lot, is called ‘The Day Ender’ which, in Spanish, is something suspiciously like ‘The Terminator’.  Jason ordered that. What a guy! (Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mean...)   Belly full, I downed my cuppa and headed back out to the bustling streets to pick up some supplies.

California Kitchen is on the corner of Gaspar Sangurima and Antonio Borrero, in an Historic Mansion located in one of the city’s Indigenous Food and Market Precincts. The Mercado 9 de Octubre is one block down.   Civic funds have revitalized this important Inner-city food bowl and assisted the preservation of the tradition of people living and working in the Inner City. Big public places have opened up between Sangurima and Lamar and greener and more pedestrian friendly walkways are being carved out of what was becoming chaotic and choked with traffic.  The refurbishment of the Market Precincts is a really big deal because it's all about valuing the more integral ways of life where food is made from fresh ingredients and eating is a necessary and rewarding social activity. (Just like at Kookaburra and California Kitchen you say?)

Continuing another block down Sangurima and you arrive at one of my all time favourite places in Cuenca, Plaza Sangurima – better known as the Rotary Market. I love wandering around this exquisite working plaza, eyeing off the handmade baskets, tin ware, wooden utensils, simple furniture, ceramic pots, ironware, horse blankets, hemp rope, piggy banks....buying it all in my mind, imagining how I could find a use for everything I see, thinking about housewarming presents.  (Don't worry Donna, I know the pink 'plastic tape' furniture won't go with your drapery!) Attention visitors to Cuenca: This is one of the best venues for finding quirky, unique gifts that have both beautiful form as well as frighteningly simple function. The coffee dripolators here, for example, don’t need electricity: an important consideration when the power goes off from time to time. 

On yesterday's post breakfast excursion, Chris and I did some actual buying, using real money. We bought a woolen saddle blanket, six hand-turned wooden pear and apple shaped boxes, two huge hand thrown ceramic pots for our Crow’s Nest Ferns, as well as several smaller glazed pots for the plants that keep arriving on our doorstep. (see Jason’s blog!) All very practical and useful items except perhaps for the fruit shaped wooden things which you would all probably regard as 'stuff'. Hey, we've got a lot of catching up to do on the 'stuff' front, having arrived in Cuenca two years ago with only four suitcases.  

So, California Kitchen is indeed in very good company -  as if any of us needed another reason to visit.

Update October 2011: Here are California Kitchen's new hours:

 

Tuesday & Wednesday - 11:30am - 4pm
Thursday & Friday - 11:30am - 4pm & 5pm - 9pm
Saturday - 9am - 5pm

Phone number - 083111740

 

 

Happy Birthday to the Andes!

Last Monday, the 12^th of April, the city of Cuenca turned 453 years old and I thought that was quite, quite old until I turned my gaze westward toward the Cajas Mountains and realized I could finally use the word Jurassic in this blog. Jurassic. That’s the period in which the Modern Andes we’ve come to know and love, began.  Before then, they were just all over the place waiting, I assume, for a little direction...  

So Happy Birthday Andes! How does it feel to be somewhere between 145 and 200 million years old? Give or take a million years? What? You only feel Cretaceous?   Ok, enough of the jokes but yes, age is relative and mysterious - and such great age is as always, a source of great beauty and great mystery and wisdom and above all, presence. GREAT presence. Take a look.....

I call these colours, the colour wheel of Ancientness - rock, grass, cloud. Chris and Jesse allowed themselves to be swept up in these sample pots of otherworldliness last Tuesday, the 13th April, or the first day of the rest of Cuenca's life.  They drove up, up, up into the Cajas National Park and got out of their vehicle and climbed up, up, up even further and perhaps even as high as 4500 meters above the crashing waves of the nearest sea. It's a funny name for a National Park, if you speak Spanish because it means 'boxes'. Some people think the mountains were named for these box shaped tarn lakes but those who speak Quichua claim the name means 'cold' - Caxa or even Cassa - 'Gateway to the snowy mountains'. Whichever, you get more of a feel for the place from the older inhabitants than from the blow-ins.

The Cajas are a significant area of Biodiversity. They're a designated Important Bird Area of the world and are also recognised as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. Tramping all over them, gently, lightly, you can sort of get an idea of that - they are indeed wet and highly populated with unique plant life, with birds and bats and pumas and possibly even bears. There used to be more bears but... you know how the story goes. There was definitely an Andean Fox around earlier in the week. 

From a distance, amongst all those 'ancient' hues, it's not easy to see how many bright, 1970's colours abound until you're right down on the ground and close up and until you are more self-reflective, perhaps, like Chris was.

Where have all the flowers gone? They've all gone to the Cajas!

   

This one below, is called a Globolito, a tiny balloon, the diminutive of the name of the large and colourful paper lanterns set adrift in the night skies over Cuenca on Feast Days and Birthdays and Sundays and other days. 

Yes, this Paramo, a word roughly translating to 'bleak landscape' is anything but. Like the tiny gentian flowers and bromeliads and deer-antlers hugging the slopes and blossoming among the sponge-like cushion plants, people also spring up, joyfully or puffed out or both, all over the National Park, on weekends, and holidays and days off.  'Time out' is needed from the bustling city, for, young and vibrant as it may be, it doesn't allow the eye to rest on fuzzy horizons, logical in their own Jurassic way, nor the foot to rest on carpets of wonderful creatures, things that our soles must surely yearn for. 

 

Debate about where Humans, both Beings and Conquistadors, belong and don't belong, rages and admittedly, we're not so well equipped to wend our ways upon narrow paths and rocky passes, but still we do.  T'is indeed a mad, mad world no matter how far one roams from the madding crowds.

 

Valentine's Day - Afternoon Soiree

If you're reading this and are actually in Cuenca on Valentine's Day - Sunday February 14, join us at Kookaburra Cafe between 2pm and 4pm to enjoy the classical guitar mastery of Paul, a talented traveller passing through the city. Paul played earlier today in Kookaburra's courtyard.

We've also mounted a new exhibition of photographs taken in Ecuador by Jesse Lewis. (check out his website!) All work is for sale so if you like what you see, you just order a print! The larger format photographs are $38. Jesse has also selected a range of smaller format prints of his work and these are only $5 each.

 

You are getting sleepier and sleepier...

...no, I am getting sleepier and sleepier! I feel like I'm in a dark movie, sitting bolt upright yet mesmerized, watching an old timepiece swing back and forward, somewhere no doubt in a mad psychiatrist's chambers in a building just like this ...  but no, it's not a nightmare scene from a Hitchcock movie! It's actually New Year's Eve and I was watching the full Blue Moon peeking out from behind spooky clouds racing over Cuenca's New Cathedral just before the midnight bell tolled. It was too, too Gothic for words: Suffice to say this picture paints a thousand of them though.

Kookaburra Cafe - An Australian Adventure in Ecuador!

You will find Kookaburra Cafe in Ecuador's most beautiful city - Cuenca.

We're located in the heart of Cuenca's World Heritage Historic Centre at Calle Larga 9-40, between Padre Aguirre and Benigno Malo. Our doors open from 8am to 4pm, Thursday through to Sunday when we serve delicious 'mix'n'match' Breakfasts made fresh to order from local and organic produce... as well as great Espresso.

For sweet tooths, our Brownies and Cheesecakes are divine. We also have a range of Loose Leaf Teas, Vegetarian food, fresh Vegetable Juice, wine by the mini bottle and a selection of Beers. From Kookaburra's tables, you can either look out toward the busy world of Calle Larga or rest and revive beside the bubbling fountain in the tranquil courtyard.

Kookaburra has mountains of reading material in English for those who've been on the road a while and we've got a sizable collection starting of local material related specifically to Ecuador. Please join us and enjoy the convivial atmosphere of a truly International venue where both the travel weary and the hungry are welcome!

If you've visited Kookaburra Cafe -

- you already know some of these photos, they're on display on our walls as a kind of homage to the people who worked so hard making those very walls, as well as the rest of Calle Larga 9-40, so beautiful. But perhaps you've seen the photos but don't know the story....

Once upon a time there were two people who lived in Australia, in a tiny hut in a forest on the side of a mountain. One day, they decided to move to Cuenca because, after many years looking on the internet (yes, even the forests have wi fi...)they discovered it was a perfect part of the world to have a big adventure in and they loved big adventures. After selling their tiny hut and after 2 days flying around the world on a number of planes, they arrived in the City of their cyber dreams and immediately bought a big old building on a long narrow street. It's true, that's exactly how it happened, mas o menos...

So, as they say, long story short or short story even shorter, they contracted a work crew to renovate their lovely old sad building and so began a nine month journey deep into the working lives of several key people they met along that way.

This is Lucho, Luis. The rest of him is a study in quietness. To me, this photo has as much personality as he does and I am instantly transported back to the day he worked on this window frame, preparing the wooden mold, hammering in nails to give the new concrete something to grab onto and enjoying the sunshine when it eventually broke through the rainy April skies. 

And this is Patricio, the youngest of 11 children and the worker who was always making the others roar with laughter. Patricio turned 18 while working with us. At this age, he was still one of the rouse-abouts, learning by assisting - fetching, cleaning, mixing...

Here, he's helping Hector. Patricio was ever patient, helpful, cooperative and astonishingly, no matter how tired and bushed, ever-smiling, like so...

By the way, that's Lucho on the right, he of the serene hand.

We also had two brothers working onsite but not at the same time. The first we met was Juan or Trucha as he came to be called while building our fish pond for several weeks. The joke was that we were going to do some trout farming on the side...  Juan enjoyed a joke and because we couldn't communicate very well in Spanish, we all got to know each other through our faces, our gestures of friendship and understanding, so when we captured the following shot, Juan's expression (on the left) said it all.

Here he is in the pond. (above) And (below) carrying a heavy load on his shoulders up both stairs and ladders.

Juan's brother Edwin was called Giovanny by everyone except me. Don't ask me why, but he said that because I called him Edwin from the very start, it just sounded right??? Edwin is a carpenter and so his contribution came toward the end when he worked on all the windows and doors. I have hardly met another person so proud of his work, and so intense. You can get that about someone, even in another language. He was very different in that way, from his brother Juan. Here he's fitting up one of those windows.

Another young worker, even younger than Patricio, was Marco. Marco hid his street creds under a hoodie most days.

Here he is sweeping and listening no doubt to the kind of vampiric music that is all the rage at the moment. Marco has interesting hair cuts and face piercings. I remember asking him one time if he'd like to work on until about 7pm and he said that he had to be home before dark. He wasn't joking. We met Marco's mum, a widow bringing up four children on her own. She is not to be disobeyed! Marco is her baby and very lucky they both are to have each other. Things will no doubt change as his working world starts taking him farther and farther from home. Marco stayed with our project for nearly 8 months until he left to work with a carpenter's gang but I heard that didn't work out. His mum has a stall up at the 10 de Agosto Market so I'll ask her how he's doing now.

Look at that beatific smile, I hope he finds a job working with wood. Honestly, the day he got to plane and stain, his whole countenance changed.

This is Alfredo, from up north near Quito. Alfredo is 26 going on 50 such a wise 'old man' nature he has. Alfredo is of the gentle world, something I think that shows in his luminous face. Alfredo and I worked on the old roof tiles, sorting them until we got something that looked as if it hadn't been touched in 100 years. We talked about that work being something his grandfather would have done back in the old days. Here's Alfredo and Marco in silhouette before the approaching storm.

Jose, the plasterer and painter, was called Orejas- Ears- because he was a little hard of hearing. He didn't say much, he just put his head down and worked, worked, worked - and with flair sometimes, a little clever balancing on the ladder?

Here he tied himself to a bucket of mud, effectively using it as a counterweight but sort of like a threat - I fall, it falls, so watch out! I was constantly saying to him, 'think of your wife, what would she say seeing you balancing up there like that?' So many of the guys working with us were gung-ho, taking risks that were difficult to justify. I was the only woman on-site though so all the burden of fear fell directly on my shoulders. By the end of the nine months I sounded like a broken record, 'ten cuidar por favor!' 

last but by no means least, is Hector. Hector worked on the project from the very first day to the very last. We have so much gratitude for his contribution for not only did he do his job well but he kept our best interests close to his heart, showing us nothing but good will and trust. After such a long time working together, six days a week, our love for him is genuine and permanent and reciprocated - a friendship made the long, hard way and so it is for Hector that we have the most gratitude. He is part of this place as much as Chris and I.

From the plaster on the walls,

to the ledges of each window sill

and every metal pipe, stair tread and floor tile.

Hector had a part in all of it and Chris and I know we couldn't have found a better person to take us through the long journey of renovating a house as well as becoming a 'sort of' local. 

So Hector is a name that you might still be able to hear vibrating in our ether and that's the story of the photos on the walls of Kookaburra Cafe and Accommodation. When you visit, take a moment to imagine how many people were once running around all day renovating it bit by tiny bit, the stuff of bricks and mortar and mud and tile. The Historic Centre of Cuenca is about lots of Architectural glamour and Religious history and cobbled streets but it is also a testament to the working life and labours of so many precious people. To me, this is what should be preserved for the World's Cultural Heritage! 

And back to the story! That couple looking for a big adventure? They're still having it AND living happily ever after. It's a fairytale remember...

8am?

Why does Kookaburra Cafe open so early? We think dawn is a special time of the day to wander around any city, especially one like Cuenca.

Most of the handsome doors are closed which makes for great photo opportunities. Birdsong floats across the shadowy spaces like liquid perfume, wafting from rooftop perches and gnarly branches.

Anyone waking up early enough will be rewarded with silent and empty streets, deep shadows and virginal sunrays creeping across the old centre, the encircling mountains and the chains of trees hugging Cuenca's river banks. The memory of birdsong and churchbells will resonate throughout your day like silent affirmations.

... and after so much enchantment, surely a good coffee at Kookaburra would be the next order of the day!

A Cuenca Woodblock Print in Air

How wonderful to awake to a stripy sky. The patch of blue framed by the old clay tiles of Kookaburra's roof-line was as beautiful as a Japanese woodblock print. Chris and I are cloud watchers from way back and we still take absolute and shameless delight in sharing the mysteries of shape-shifting images overhead. Cuenca doesn't disappoint as a cloud capital with dawn and dusk the best time to turn your gaze upwards...

 

Celiac, Lactose intolerant or Vegetarian in Cuenca Ecuador...

Eating and ordering food should be a tantalizing experience but that's not always the case when there are certain things you can't or don't want to eat. The owners of Kookaburra Cafe understand the tyranny of set menus and food contamination and pride themselves on the care and empathy that will ensure your dining experience is, well, normal... Who wants to make a big splash when a little bit of cooperation means that no wheat, rye, barley or oats passes anywhere near your food? This is the go, you tell us what you can't eat and we'll make sure we find what you can. And Vegetarians, don't despair, Cuenca has a gazillion fresh food markets and even a couple that specialize solely in organic fruit and veg and Kookaburra Cafe's changing menu reflects this abundance. Check out our specials board, we're at Calle Larga 9-40, not far from the Hat Museum. 

It's official, you've just got to visit Cuenca in 2010!

Lonely Planet lists Cuenca in its Top 10 Cities to travel to in 2010. Check out the gorgeous photo of the city's New Cathedral here.

And when you do come, of course, you must drop in to Kookaburra Cafe and check out our specials! See you then...

Kookaburra B&B, Cuenca: Affordable Boutique Accommodation in Ecuador

Boutique Accommodation doesn't necessarily mean expensive. Cuenca in Ecuador is a small city, a manageable, 'flaneur friendly' style city where a daily stroll may include taking in the beauty of a fresh flower market at the doors of a cloistered Convent, lounging on wooden park benches underneath the shade of century old Araucaria Pines or an hour of Contemplation beside the fast running Tomebamba River. None of these activities are expensive yet some would consider them priceless and therein lies the difference that at times differentiates one style of accommodation from another.

The accommodation offered at Kookaburra Cafe is stylish and simple - clean beds, space to spread out, safe and cosy. Our refurbished, early 20th Century Casa is in the heart of town but by the time you close the heavy wooden front door, the vibrant bustle of Calle Larga recedes and the timeless tranquility of life around adobe courtyards unfolds. Share the main courtyard with others hungry for good food but step through your own zaguan and the privacy of Kookaburra's two well appointed 'mini-suites' means you can still get away from it all. That's what Boutique Lodgings have going for them: Individual character and good structure, like a good wine! Salud!

 

Looking for a Clean, Green Cafe and Accommodation experience in Cuenca, Ecuador?

Well, here we are! We offer clean, green food and fresh cotton bedding and it's your choice, you can have breakfast in that comfy bed or join us at the cafe tables from 8am, Thursday to Sunday. Kookaburra Cafe is the newest B&B in Cuenca, check out the rest of our website!
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Cuenca's newest accommodation...what's a morning without coconuts?

Each week, a big old truck departs the steamy tropics on Ecuador's coast and winds its way up and over the Andean high pass of the Cajas National Park. It is making a bee-line for Kookaburra Cafe, in Calle Larga. Well, actually, it's making a bee-line for the building over the road from Kookaburra Cafe where the tricycle coconut sellers live. It is such an enjoyable after hours spectacle, I look forward to it. Sometimes the truck arrives just before dawn and sometimes it arrives just after midnight but whatever hour, the journey's end is always a boisterous meeting of friends, lots of laughter and shouting and to-ing and fro-ing and then the counting. There are hundreds and hundreds of coconuts to unload and each one is tumbled out of the hold of the truck and thrown from arm to arm along the street and onto the footpath....ochente seis...ochente siete... It's great practice following the count in Spanish and sometimes I feel like opening my window and shouting, 'bingo!' I nearly always fall asleep again somewhere toward the one hundred coconut mark.

Each morning, a half dozen tricycles emerge from the garage doors across the road and sleepy coconut sellers emerge alongside them to set up the coconuts, the umbrella, the bucket of water, the knife - everything a mobile coconut seller will need for a day on the bustling streets of Cuenca's historic centre. They appear a happy bunch, excuse the pun.

Visiting Cuenca, Ecuador? It's not all about hats

Cuenca is home to the Panama Hat and its many Hat retailers and museums are kept very busy shading faces but in the big scheme of things, it's not all about hats. In November alone, visitors to the city can grab an authentic handmade sombrero and they can also watch a romantic movie at an Open Air Cinema set up on one of Calle Larga's grandiose Escalinatas. An International Film Festival is also in town if you prefer your movies the more conventional way. There are a multitude of cultural interventions taking place in the city as part of the Cuenca Bienal, from Design to Performance Art to Performance Bars! Be the art while you're having a beer... In fact you can even be an art lover on two wheels and join the 'Cycle Art', a cycling tour of all the best spaces.

...Cuenca Bling. UNESCO World Heritage Site

This is what Lonely Planet has to say about Cuenca-

"While Quito wins on grandeur, Cuenca takes the cake for beauty. Founded by the Spanish in 1557, Ecuador's third-largest city is the colonial jewel of the south. Red-tiled buildings, handsome plazas and domed churches line cobblestoned streets - all above the grassy banks of the Río Tomebamba."

...and if Cuenca is the Jewel in Ecuador's Crown, the New Cathedral, seen here (above) receiving some close up attention, is the sparkle in that jewel. Cuenca is one of UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage Cities and its Historic Centre is undergoing a revival attracting many global travellers interested in Architectural Restoration. 

 

Organic Food in Cuenca, Ecuador? Not a pickle...

...but tasty organic tomatoes in a Jam, precisely. Thomas, the grower of organic vegetables, delivered the end of a bumper crop of romas the other day. He also brought a sample of a tasty lettuce that looked a little sunburned until he introduced us. Meet Flashy Trout Back Lettuce.  Eyebrows raised... heard of it? Of course we raced to the early saturday morning market to buy some really flashy fresh Cajas trout to complete the theme. Yeah, it was a good match.

Cuenca, Ecuador, sleeping in? ...on going too slow

Cuenca's streets are slowly being readied for the four days of Fiesta, a collection of street parties encompassing the Day of the Dead and the anniversary of this Ecuadoran city's reclamation from Peru. Restoration fine-tuning at Calle Larga 9-40 however, NOT sleeping in, means the festivities will bypass Kookaburra Cafe, this year. If you're coming to Cuenca after mid November 2009 though, we will be ready, promise.