A $100.00 Evening for less than $25.00.

I know you were not expecting to hear from me again so soon.  But, we have just returned for an amazing evening out.  We wanted to share some of our excitement with you.  We were lured downtown tonite for a International Latin Fusion concert sponsored by the City of Cuenca, Ecuador.  So we decided to make a big evening out and have dinner before the concert.  We had attempted to buy the $2.00 tickets yesterday, but when we arrived at the ticket despensing office they announced they would not go on sale until Friday  9 a.m.  Much too early for a couple of recently retired folks who no longer set an alarm.  So we whiled away the day doing other stuff and decided we would go down at about 6-6:30 p.m. and pick up tickets and then go to dinner.  When we arrived the ticket place was closed, the concert was to be across the street.  So being laid back Cuencan's we went to a leisurely dinner within walking distance of where the concert was supposed to be.  After dinner we walked back to the concert, where we found lots of people in lines, most with tickets, but a separate line for those of us without tickets.  So we struck up a conversation with two European young women who were visiting Cuenca from Quito for the weekend.  As the lines moved forward I was almost in front of the line when one of the men who was taking tickets thrust a ticket in my hand.  When my husband asked why, my response was because he recognized a beautiful women.  Anyway it was no time before I was ushered inside the gate and toward the door of the auditorium.  At the same time the gate was closed on Bill, who still had not paid for a ticket.  When I said "Oh, I can't go, he is my husband" the gate keeper said:  "que pasa" and let him in.  So we have entered the auditorium without buying any tickets.  The auditorium seated about 500 people and it was full.  

The  quartet was two guitars, trumpet, drummer and vocalist.  With usually only four musicians playing at one time.  My musical ear gave the following revue:  Group was very tight, always on pitch, played a fascinating array of Latin music.  Crowd was very appreciative, as demonstrated by the 6 year old child who was with his parents, two rows in front of us.  He danced and clapped to just about every number, oh the energy.  We throughly enjoyed it.  

We walked to a dessert restaurant for coffee and goodies and a bano.  There we enjoyed a brownie with ice cream and a capppucino and a black berry tart with cappucino.  Then we hailed and taxi for a very exciting ride home.  Normally during the day in Cuenca, the taxi cannot go very fast, due to the traffic.  However, at night there is none.  So Mr. Taxi was doing 45-50mph on the narrow cobble stone streets as he honked at every intersection to keep us from getting broadsided, this experience  can only be compared to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. We arrived home very pleased with ourselves, after a lovely evening which cost us less than $25.00 including taxis both ways.