Intermission

Michelle and I are spending a week at Chimborazo Base Camp (“Estrella del Chimborazo”). It lies nestled in a quiet valley at the foot of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, and provides hikers and climbers with an oasis of luxury. www.expediciones-andinas.com or marcocruz@andinanet.net

The Base Camp is run by Marco Cruz, and his lovely wife Ximena. Marco is a living legend in Ecuador – a “National Treasure”. He is a famous mountain climber, skilled writer, terrific photographer, obsessive collector, successful entrepreneur, and scholarly historian of Ecuador. One of the treats of staying at the Base Camp is be able to talk to him, and enjoy his photos, bird paintings, and mementos from 50 years of climbing around the world that decorate the walls.

Michelle and I are not climbers, we have to acclimatize to the altitude and learn to climb. Ximena had emailed us a clothing list before we left, and Marco laid out a set of grueling hikes designed to prepare us for the summit attempt. The base camp is a wonderful starting point to do this – glorious hikes of every difficulty and altitude.

The Base Camp is a realization of Marco’s vision of eco-tourism at Chimborazo. The lodge is built with traditional wood-beam and thatched-roof construction, but with all the modern conveniences for a pampered traveller. It’s hard to imagine how he conceived and built these luxurious facilities in this remote site. Marco continues to improve the buildings, and also to repair damage done to the local streams and ecology over the last centuries.

There is a main lodge with the great hall and dining room (and facilities for the staff). A large picture window in the back of the great hall frames Chimborazo. This photo doesn’t quite capture how Chomborazo dominates the neighbourhood. But it does give some idea of how spectacular this mountain is.

Each day ends with climbers and hikers gathered around the great fire pit, enjoying a cinnamon tea before dinner.

Meals are hearty mountain cooking, always starting with a thick soup. Michelle was laughing that every meal seems to include all three staples - corn, potatoes, and rice.

The two guest-quarters buildings are also traditional construction, but with modern bathrooms, hot showers, and space heaters. After a 5-hour hike, there is nothing more blissful than a long hot shower, and then collapsing into down comforters for an afternoon nap.

The afternoon diversion is the Dog-and-Llama show. A friendly german shepherd and an adult male llama are fond of playing ‘chase’. The llama will frequently travel down from the meadows in the afternoon with his family to ‘chase the dog’.

The german shepherd tries to take a nip off the backside of the much larger llama, and then flees with paroxysms of gleeful barking. The llama never hurts the dog, but it is clear that he is the aggressor. A juvenile llama on unsteady legs is learning the game (at least the chase-the-dog part, the shepherd is very gentle with it) while mom watches bemusedly.

For serious climbers, the usual route up Chimborazo starts from the Whymper Refuge at 5,000 meters. To get there from Base Camp is a 15-minute drive to the lower refuge building, and then a 30-minute climb.

If you want to roll out of bed and start climbing, Rodrigo Donoso maintains the Whymper Refuge as a hostel. Accommodations are more spartan, but it is warm and dry. We saw a generator, so there is likely some electricity.

When we were there, Rodrigo was busy repairing the roof, which had been damaged by 170km/hr winds. We think the $10 per night he charges is a much better deal than pitching a tent.  I don’t have an email for Rodrigo, but Lonely Planet has it.

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Michelle has settled into the oversize bathtub in the warm, luxurious Hotel San Pedro in Rio Bamba with a happy sigh. After three weeks of shivering in Cuenca, this feels more like what travelling should be.

Our guide arrives to pick us up, and we leave the creature comforts of the Hotel San Pedro in Rio Bamba for our week in the mountains.

First stop is the offices of Marco Cruz, and reconnect with Ximena – we have been looking forward to seeing Marco and Ximena since we hiked with them last year. Our suitcases and pulled out and our clothing is reviewed, and we are fitted for crampons (boot spikes for walking on the ice).

To help us acclimatize for our ascent later this week, Marco has laid out a series of training hikes. Today, we head off on an easy four-hour hike, with the only altitude gain the difference between Rio Bamba and that of the lodge (1000 meters).

The first hour and a half follow a dirt road with great views of the surrounding terraced farmland and mountains. It is uphill, but not strenuously so—just a steady walking meditation.

After lunch our guide leaves the dirt road and follows an old Inca route. At least we take our guide’s word that there is a path. There are waist high tussocks of grasses. I develop a new walking technique—kick one foot out as far as possible to move the grasses, kick the other foot out. Repeat. This is meant too simulate walking in waist high snow drifts—something to look forward to.

(If you follow the line from Eddy’s forehead, that’s the Inca path that we were walking along. But it is less obvious when you are actually on it.)

In the mountains, the weather changes fast. The sunshine turns to cloud, then rain and hail. We put on all the clothes we have brought, including gloves. But we are still wearing jeans – we didn’t expect to start hiking from the office – and getting cold and wet.

After two more hours of slogging, two soggy but happy travellers smile as the lodge comes into view.

The sun has come out again. Behind us, Chimborazu emerges in all its glory – seeming to rise straight up into outer space. It is more than just a little bit intimidating. Last time we were here, fog and cloud obscured it from us. We are awed, and begin to realize how big a climb this is going to be.

- “Michelle, this must rank with some of the stupidest things we’ve ever done.”

- “You mean stupid, like climbing the glacier at El Chalten? Stupid like the 160 km bicycle ride?”

- “No, more stupid. Way, way more stupid. Insane, life-threatening stupid.”

- “Sorry dear, I can’t think of anything. This is new – it’s in a class of its own.”

- “Usually you have enough common sense to talk me out of these things.”

- “Well, I can twist my ankle, abandon the climb, and save my life.”

- “Good thinking, now what’s my excuse? We can’t both twist our ankles.”

We finish the hike, find some dry clothes, head over to the main lodge, and accept a reviving hot cinnamon beverage.

Marco Cruz has written an article titled “50 Years at Chimborazo” in a Spanish mountain-climbing magazine. It’s about his experiences at the mountain, starting with his first summit 50 years ago. He’s obviously quite proud, and sets us to read it, offering to answer any questions afterwards. We are sitting at the fireplace, dictionary in hand. “… una loma nevada… “

- “A ‘loma’ is a cow. I ordered loma at the Argentine restaurant.”

- “No Tom, that was lomo.”

- “The ‘a’ ending means it is a female cow. Nevada is snow, so it’s a snow-cow of some sort.”

- “You’re an idiot. Look it up in the dictionary.”

- “Um..Umm… You’re right, it’s a hill. I guess that makes more sense.”

We hear a disgusted snort behind us, and Marco stomps off. Sheesh, some authors are so sensitive.

Last week, we met with the Cuenca Chamber of Commerce. http://www.cccuenca.com.ec/

In addition to the usual Chamber activities, they have a new mandate to attract businesses investments to Cuenca and create jobs.

We met with Xavier Patino Aguilera , the Executive Vice President, and his team of smart, young technocrats who are working on this mandate. Xavier gave us an ‘internal’ presentation on the strategies they are considering, and the various challenges that they need to address.

We made a presentation on the ‘Import Substitution’ approach to growth. In particular, we reviewed Jane Jacob’s thesis in ‘Cities and the Wealth of Nations’ about how cities grow through import substitution.

John Sewell, the former mayor of Toronto, had tried to accelerate this process, and we reviewed his progress report from a decade ago (does anyone have an update?).

We also presented the ‘Smiley Curve’ (like the smile in a happy-face, high at either end and low in the middle). This curve represents where the profits from a product go, with high profits at the initial stages (for designer and developers), low profits in the middle (for manufacturers), and high profits at the tail end (for retailers). The curve captures the logic that drives companies to outsource to China.

There is a long article about this concept that was published in The Atlantic last year, worth the time to read. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200707/shenzhen

Our message with these two presentations was that competing for outsource manufacturing was a dead end. The Chamber needed to foster local businesses, and look for foreign partners that would bring technology, finance, and marketing expertise.

All this was followed by a spirited discussion about how investors and companies view various kinds of risks, and how to address various obstacles that Ecuadorian bureaucrats have created.

Personally, I think Cuenca is the land of opportunity. The local market is growing quickly, the population is young and dynamic. Cuenca’s focus on education, culture, and the arts make it a magnet for exactly the kinds of citizen-employees that every company is looking for. The streets of Cuenca are like walking over a field of diamonds – you only need to bend over to scoop one up here.

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The Chamber’s development mandate is funded by USAid and SNV (the Netherland Development Agency).  Hats off to them. Fostering local entrepreneurs with local agents (like the Chamber) is the kind of sober and thoughtful investment that doesn’t get press releases back home, but delivers real improvement in peoples lives.

We’ve been invited by Rita and Jaime for a family weekend to their country cottage or ‘Casa del Campo’ in Susudel, about two hours drive south of Cuenca. We expected something rustic and abandoned – probably no electricity or hot water. We couldn’t have been more wrong.

The ‘Casa’ is a 5,000 sq ft modern, breathtakingly beautiful luxury home – something right out of Architectural Digest. The construction is traditional adobe and wood beams, beautifully executed, tastefully decorated, and meticulously maintained. The gardens are landscaped and tended. The kitchen and bathrooms are modern.

Susudel is a ranch-farm that dates back to 1520, one of the earliest Spanish settlements in the Ecuador interior. It stretches over a lush valley ringed by impenetrable mountains. The local church was built in 1534. The land tells the story of long cultivation – with irrigation lakes, hedgerows of 6-foot cactus and carefully terraced gardens.

Jaime’s great-grandfather owned all the land from one river to the next – an immense tract of land. The church and surrounding village would have belonged to him.

The casa nestles high on a gentle hillside, and backs into a protective ring of steep walls that might once have been the caldera of an ancient volcano. Jaime designed it, he and Rita built it slowly starting in 1992 and finishing a decade later.

Several of Jaime’s brothers and sisters have also built houses nearby. The homes form a sprawling compound on a meadow overlooking the town of Susudel. There is lots of land left – they offer us a field – free - if we feel inclined to build our own casa.

A family lives in an adjacent house to Jaime and Rita, and maintains the casa - when we arrive on Friday night, the house is lit up and waiting for us. The fireplace is burning, the beds are made, and everything is spotless and ready.

There is even  an authentic clay baking oven at the side of the house (the ‘real’ kitchen is totally modern).

Saturday morning, we hike up a nearby hill (next shot) for a panoramic view.  It’s a clear day – visibility is probably 200 miles and we think we can see the earth’s curvature.

When we get back, most of the family has arrives (Jaime and Rita’s children and grandchildren and some in-laws – about 25 people in all), and a full pig carcass is stretched out for the afternoon’s feast. Cooking it takes most of the afternoon.

There is no sit-down lunch or dinner, just a stream of ‘finger-food’ through the afternoon. As each stage of the pig is ready, it is directly handed out from the barbecue. The skin is crisped with a blow-torch and passed around. The next layer of fat is carved, fried into crispy rinds, and served with mote (boiled white corn). Ribs are carved, barbecued, and devoured. Various delicacies such as kidneys are passed and shared. Mote is mixed with various innards into ‘Dirty Mote’, which is quite tasty.

The barbecue is the center of the party, but there is also a pick-up soccer game on the driveway, and other diversions (it’s Jaime’s birthday). There is also a steady flow of Zhumir, a fiery sugar-cane liquor made in Cuenca.

By 5:00, most of the carcass is gone. No one is much interested in dinner. Except for some mote, there were no vegetables.

We dropped in on Olga, one of Jaime’s sisters, at a neighboring casa – smaller but just as inviting. She was going to make tortillas and we wanted to see how it was done.

Before they could be fried, her family started arriving – suddenly there were 20 people in the kitchen – and we bailed out. It was getting dark, and there was a famous lookout to see the sunset ‘just down the road’. Turned out to be a 20-minute drive to the other side of a mountain, but worth the trip.

In the mountains, sunset is a quick event. There are no streetlights, and few houses . If the sky is clear (as it was on Friday night), the Milky Way is a thick white band across the sky. I haven’t seen it like that since I was a kid.

We get back, and the party continues late into the night. The thin air cools off quickly at night, but starting a fire is as simple as stacking some dry wood into a wheelbarrow and igniting it with a blowtorch. We head off to bed around 10:00, but some of the guests talk and drink until 5:00 in the morning.

On Sunday, we drive down to visit the local church. It’s locked up, but Jaime makes a phone call and someone shows up with a key. Inside, in one of the alcoves, is a mural that dates back to the original construction.

Rita and Jaime love Susudel, they hope to retire here. They dream about upgrading it into a country inn or retreat. In addition to the four bedrooms, there is a full apartment with a kitchen and separate entrance on the lower level, and dormitory living space in the roof eves.

Susudel is a paradise for hiking, climbing, and horseback riding. The climate is dry and pleasantly warm all year long, and the views can’t be described. But it’s not clear if customers would travel this far – it’s hard to imagine a more remote part of the world.

Michelle suggests that perhaps the casa could be a temporary home for exchange teachers and visiting doctors and dentists. There is certainly a need - the local village is poor, and the peasant-farmers are even poorer. And why not enjoy the best of Ecuadorian luxury while visiting Susudel.

We’re coming to the end of our first set of Spanish lessons, as we prepare to leave Cuenca. After three weeks of daily lessons, we can carry on a simple conversation and follow a more complex one.

We have a working vocabulary of about 1,000 words. We’re delighted with our progress but wouldn’t mind it if we could pull out the words we know when we need them. Our English is picking up Spanish habits (I caught Michelle saying the phrase in the title, and we laughed till we were red-faced).

But our ears can’t decipher verbs yet. In Spanish, verbs carry a lot of the load, and there are a lot of them.

The verb tells you who the sentence is about. In English, we have “I talk, you talk, they talk”, but in Spanish it is customary to drop the pronoun and let the verb ending tell you who is talking: hablo, hablas, habla, etc.

As well, the verb tells you whether the sentence is about the past, present-completed, present-ongoing, future-definite, or future-indefinite. We have learned these 5 basic tenses, and 4 of them are simply changed endings of the verb stem, for example the future tense: Hablaba, hablabas, hablaba… (yes, that’s what we think too.)

And of course, there are lots of irregular verbs where the stem changes for certain pronouns or tenses. Probably English is equally irregular. But the problem is that our ears aren’t decoding these verbs – often we don’t even recognize the stem, and we certainly can’t figure the tense and subject at the speed that people talk.

When you add in the different phonemes, we are in double trouble. (’llegar’ - to carry - is pronounced ‘yegar’ before you complicate it with a kaleidoscope of endings). And don’t even get me started on ‘hacer’ - to have- it is one of the most important verbs, but the h is silent and we often fail to recognize it.

Then there are the sounds that we can’t make – like the rolling r’s in ‘yo quierre’ (the future tense of to want). Try this exercise at home – put your tongue against the inside of your top teeth, close your jaws and get a ‘r’ sound out.

In class, we take our time (and lots of it), and mispronounce 50% of our words. When speaking out of class, we have no chance to work through the correct tense and person. So our Spanish is laced with infinitive forms and horrible grammar (and has caused interesting misunderstandings).

It’s especially hard at the end of the day, when we are tired.

But we are talking, reading, and writing. We can follow a conversation, make ourselves understood, and even tell puny jokes. Michelle is more disciplined – her pronunciation is better and her verbs are more likely to be right. Tom is more fluent, cheerfully butchering syntax and telling stories in a blend of Spanish, French, English, and Nonsense.

Our ears will work better once our brains have had time to rewire. After three weeks, we are thrilled with our progress.

Thanks again to Patricia, our teacher at the Amauta school (Amauta Fundacion ) and Rita who has been endlessly patient in practicing with us.

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If we are slow to post blog entries for the next two weeks, it’s because we don’t expect that remote volcano mountaintops and hotsprings have WiFi access.

This weekend, we are at Rita and Jaime’s country house, then we head to Riobamba, Chimborazo, and Banos for two weeks of climbing and soaking in a spa. If we can’t find a hotspot, we’ll try to post from an internet cafe, but when we were at Chimborazo last year, we didn’t even have electricity.

Next landing is Manta, a coastal town in Ecuador with lovely beaches, on Oct 5, where we are booked for two more weeks of Spanish lessons.

You would walk right by without a second thought, but the scent of roasting coffee pulls you in. It isn’t so much a coffee shop as a coffee alcove under an archway, but don’t be deceived, it is worth stopping in. We are convinced it has the best coffee in Ecuador—and that is saying something.

The coffee is grown in Loja, about an hour or so south of Cuenca. As you are waiting for your caffeine fix, the shopkeeper will happily give you more information about Loja, and encourage you to plan a visit to the coffee farms (and jump off into the Amazon – Loja is on the edge of the jungle).

We found this little shop last year when we were travelling with Dale and Nellie. We had a single day in Cuenca at the end of our trip, and were wandering the streets. The scent of roasting coffee drew us, and we picked up a pound of ground roast. In Toronto, we discovered it was fabulous – this coffee may actually be the reason we beelined back to Cuenca to start our trip.

But we had no idea where the shop was. So we marched up and down the colourful avenues of the ‘centro’ until we found it again. It’s called Cafe Lojano, and here it is.

Coffee shops in Cuenca do not do ‘take-out’ in the style of Starbucks. If you are on the run, the style is to order an expresso which comes in a tiny shotglass, and knock it back while standing at the counter. We like to settle into one of the two small tables in the back, and enjoy a Grande.

At the casa, Rita serves freeze-dried instant coffee, pour a heaping teaspoon into a mug of hot milk and it is pleasant (certainly the warm milk is nice).  We bought a pound of ground coffee and begged her to add it to our breakfast.

Making drip coffee in Ecuador is exactly that. The coffee grounds are extremely fine, you hang a filter from a cabinet handle and pour about a cup of hot water through it, and a half-cup of inky black-gold drips out the bottom into a bowl. Add two or three tablespoons of this to a cup of hot milk, and the rest of the day will be perfect too.

If work commitments prevent you from dropping into Cafe Lojano for an expresso or cafe-con-leche, they will ship it to you. The address is: eltostador@hotmail.com

About 30 minutes drive from Cuenca’s center is Cajas National Park. The Sunday drive is relentlessly uphill, we are heading into the mountains.

Cajas is an amazingly beautiful mountain park. It takes two days to hike across it (longer if you are inefficient with a compass). Cajas includes part of the old Inca Trail (a trading route) and contains mountain cloud forests and grasses, hundreds of lakes, and a huge variety of flora. Some 125 species of birds have been found here.

If you are into camping (we are not), you can pitch a tent or sleep in some rustic bunkhouses. But bring the right clothing and equipment. Although it was warm in Cuenca when we left, it is considerably colder in Cajas.

We are wearing hats and gloves for a short hike, and the wind cuts right through us. Our little walk is only at 4,000 meters, Michelle and I are starting to wonder if we have the fortitude for Chimborazo next week. (She is wearing thermal long-underwear under jeans, three layers of tops, and shivering).

Trout farming is the dominant industry at the edge of the park – the endless streams are screened and pooled into trout farms. There are ’sport fishing’ lakes stocked with trout, and trout is a major Ecuador export.

After our walk, we stop for lunch at the old restaurant at the park entrance (there is an old one and a new one). It was built in 1955, and doesn’t seem to have changed much. An amazing meal of Locro de Papas (thick potato soup with avocado) and, of course, fried trout. Delicious.

Once upon a time, someone saw the Virgin (Virgen del Cajas) in the park, presumably hiking and enjoying the spectacular scenery. Since then, many people like to visit the chapel at the location of this sighting, to ask for miracles and to pray.

We think we may have caught a glimpse of her lurking in a corner of the restaurant. Or maybe it was just Jaime trying to warm up.

After lunch, we stop in the new restaurant for a hot chocolate, and to take a look at the trout in pools beside the restaurant. The fog is rolling down the mountains (it can become so dense that driving is impossible), so we high-tail back to Cuenca.

Rita, our hostess, has a side business of handmade quilted products. There are comforters, quilted bags, toiletry cases, place-mats, aprons, pillow-cases, and many other designs. Here is photos of two baby baskets, about 2-1/2 feet in full size.

They are individually constructed, beautifully finished, very high quality. Rita does designs, and her staff assembles and sews. She sells them across Ecuador, but has not yet tried to export them.

Our sense is that the designs and patterns are not suitable for North America – for example, we carry babies in ergonomic shells that double as car seats, rather than wrapped in a blanket as here. Her fabric patters are chosen for Ecuadorian tastes. (We are going to download some traditional Canadian designs to show her.)

We are hoping that a reader knows someone with retail savvy who might be interested in working with Rita. Please pass this on – even if just to someone who might know someone…

You can reach Rita directly on her cell at 0-11-(593)-7-099444630.  I’m guessing that will work, the 593 is Ecuador’s country code, and the 7 is Cuenca’s city code. You may have to drop the following zero.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t use email yet.

If you aren’t comfortable with Spanish, contact us, and we’ll have a bilingual family member call you back. Thanks in advance.

Saturday was La Princessa’s third Birthday, and there was a party for family and 30 or so of her closest friends (and their parents) . We received a hand-written invitation.

It’s a major bash – even a newspaper reporter was there to cover the festivities. He took enough pictures for a full special edition, let alone an article.

The party theme is ‘Strawberry Shortcake’ – and guess who is there to meet us at the door!

The party is at a ‘Party Center’, with soccer pitch, inflated fun houses, and all the regalia for a perfect birthday. It’s a bright sunny day, even the cloud gods are helping the celebration.

We get there a bit early, so I get to play one-on-one soccer with Giancarlo. I’m thinking I’m pretty good against a 6-year old, but I find out later (when the other kids arrived and he let loose) that he was letting me win. We watch in awe as some three year-olds run the ball up and down the field with perfect focus.

Eventually everyone arrives and settles in. There is theater and magic for the youngest guests, and the soccer pitch is never empty. Hot dogs are distributed, and even that doesn’t slow the games - you have to imagine kids running a soccer ball around while holding a hot dog.

The cake blowing ceremony is magnificent – the ‘Strawberry Shortcake’ Birthday cake is perfect in every detail.

A hush falls over the crowd, and Princessa blows out the candles. Wild applause and fireworks (well, poppers with confetti).

The cake is carved and distributed.  We catch some adults having seconds, so it doesn’t last long.

Following, a ‘Strawberry Shortcake’ piñata is broken to shrieks of delight and more confetti. An awesome party winds to a happy end.

The climate in Cuenca is cool-to-cold (and often damp). Because we are high up in the mountains, the weather can, and does, change suddenly.

Today started nicely, with a suggestion of lovely sunshine trying to break through the clouds. But it dropped quickly - by 10:00 AM, it was FREEZING, probably around 10 C (50 F). It warmed up a bit towards the end of the day.

That temperature is not uncommon here. It was a cold (and raining) day when we arrived two weeks ago (not this bad). A warm day here is highly agreeable - like a gentle fall day in Toronto – and most of them are like that. Cuenca is at the equator. It’s eternal spring, all year long (which is great marketing), but we are high in the mountains and summer doesn’t ever arrive.

If you think that buildings in Cuenca are be suitable for this cool climate, you would be wrong. Our classroom was frigid. We were shivering, our fingers were blue by the time we broke for lunch.

The family we are staying with live in a lovely, sprawling 7-bedroom two-story house. The three children have grown and moved out, and Rita and Jaime have lots of room.

Although this is a an ‘executive’ house by Cuenca standards, there is an immediate difference from a comparable Toronto house - there is no central heating.

Not only no central heating, but also no insulation. The walls are thin, and there are quarter-inch gaps under the doors. Windows are single-glaze, and the wooden sills have no seals – and many fit badly since the house has settled over the years. Gaps in the ceilings remain where renovations have been done – and only the tile roof is above.

‘Drafty’ doesn’t describe it. We feel as if we are camping outdoors when we go to bed.

This house is probably about 30 years old. But brand-new houses don’t have insulation either. Central heating seems to be unheard of, and we haven’t seen any space heaters either.

Restaurants and stores in the city center are just as unheated – and the front door is usually open to invite clients in. Often they are garage-door affairs – when the store is open, it is OPEN. We went out for a pizza at a popular restaurant, the front section was unbearably cold (and empty). We found a table near the pizza oven which was fine.

Our school is in a delightful old inner-courtyard building that has been renovated with love. But no heating, no insulation, and a carefree disregard to keeping the inside and the outside separate. The picture below shows a detail of how the former courtyard was covered over – bright and sunny, but not even attempting airtight.

Houses in Cuenca are constructed directly onto a concrete slab – there are no basements or crawl-spaces. Tile floors are common, and they are icy in the morning.

Jose and Fernanda’s ultramodern townhouse has two stories of floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall glass (single-glaze) and tile floors directly on the foundation. It’s stunningly beautiful, but must be frigid when the temperature drops.

It’s not that people here don’t notice the cold. When we came home this evening, our hostess was wearing four layers of clothing.

Michelle has taken to sleeping in full-length top-and-bottom fleecy layers and socks. She cuddles up to me for my warmth (that’s why she keeps me).

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Also, there is only cold-running water, no central water heater in the house. An ‘Instant-Hot’ provides us with a hot shower most mornings.

It works surprisingly well. But the heater only has one speed - if you set the shower to an appropriate trickle, the water is warm enough. If the water volume increases, the temperature quickly drops. No need for high-efficiency shower heads.

If oil prices go back to $150, we may start seeing these in Canada as well.