Backtracking

I'd like to backtrack a few weeks to our arrival in Cuenca. We were met at the airport by Mayra, the director of our Spanish school. She was warm and welcoming and the drive into town went quickly (the airport is very near the center of town). We were on a busy thoroughfare when suddenly the car pulled over and Mayra said, in Spanish, here we are. I had a sinking feeling, almost shock, as cars whizzed by and buses lurched past, wheezing black fumes.
The owner of the apartment building greeted us and helped us carry our luggage up the stairs to our apartment. The apartment itself wasn't bad, very small, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a mini kitchen, but it was incredibly noisy with the bedrooms overlooking the street.
Before Mayra left she gave us a map of the city with the school and the apartment marked on it. The school was in old town on the other side of the river. I asked her the best way to get there. She started to explain that there were two bridges and that the first one, the closer one to our apartment we should avoid after dark but that she thought it was okay during the day. She asked for confirmation from the landlady and they spoke very rapidly for a couple of minutes, concluding that yes, during the day the first bridge was okay but that the second one was better.
She handed us a welcome packet and said her good-byes. Besides a card with her contact information the welcome packet contained only one sheet of paper. It was a warning letter about how in Cuenca, like every other city in the world, there was crime. It contained advice about how to carry your bag, where to keep your valuables, where not to go at night. Welcome.

The apartment builing is U-shaped, one side on the street, one side overlooking the river, with a grassy play area in the middle. That last part was nice but not enough to make up for the traffic.
Mark and I knew that we wouldn't last here long and didn't bother to unpack anything more than the essentials.

The point of all this is the reaction the kids had. They immediately unpacked and began the process of claiming the bedroom as their new home, arranging their few treasured possessions, making some drawings to tape to the walls.
Over the next couple of days whenever Mark and I talked about finding a new apartment they quickly protested, "No we don't want to move. We like it here."
From that apartment our walk into old town was not pleasant. Most of it was straight down what turns out to be one of the busiest streets in Cuenca. That first day we left the apartment and began the journey to the historic part of town. We hadn't gone more than fifteen feet when a huge dog lunged at us from behind a fence and began ferociously barking.

And yet, like the kids, Mark and I never really considered leaving Cuenca. As it's turned out we've found a nice spacious home in a quiet part of the city and each day appreciate more this town full of rivers surrounded by mountains. And yet we had every reason to at least think about bolting.

We all hunger for a home and after the extended period of dismantling our lives in San Francisco we were all ready to settle down. And so here we are.

Sheilah
PS Sorry, no pictures this time but we will post some soon. We have been spending some of our computer energy dealing with lingering business matters from our days in the States.