Bettie's Books

0-292-70928-5 Cañar: A Year in the Highlands of Ecuador pub 2005truly excellent photography (as only to be expected!)nonfic> autobioskimdedication For Michael, always at my side,for Cosmo and Paiwa,the next generationand in memory ofMama Vicenta Quishpilema PichisacaOpening: We wake very early at the Hostal Irene, the bare-bones hotel wherewe’ve paid four dollars to spend our first night in Cañar. Our bordello-stylebed with its heart-shaped, red-flocked, chrome-scrolled headboard is hardas a rock, with one flimsy blanket and a long, thin, tightly rolled pillow thatMichael and I shared. Amazingly, we slept well, but now it’s too chilly tostay in our room.We dress quickly, let ourselves out of the main gate of thehostel (really just a house with a few extra bedrooms upstairs and a com-munal bathroom), and walk through the quiet streets of the town, lookingfor breakfast.Some may think it portentous to move on the Day of the Dead, yet all seems to be good; so good in fact, that later this couple were to build their own house on the side of a mountain as detailed in the next memoir Our House in the Clouds3*