Essential Spanish phrases

The municipal public company that supplies Cuenca's drinking water, its sewerage and its telephone and fibre internet. One municipally owned utility for all of it — an arrangement that exists nowhere else in Ecuador.

The stretch of towers along Avenida Ordóñez Lasso where a large share of the foreign retiree population lives. Used affectionately, wearily and self-deprecatingly, sometimes all at once, and everyone knows exactly where you mean.

A person from Cuenca, and a genuine regional identity — a distinctive sing-song accent, a reputation for formality and reserve, and a certain pride in not being Quito or Guayaquil.

The straw hat the world calls a Panama hat, which is Ecuadorian. Cuenca and the Azuay villages around it are one of the two great weaving and finishing centres, and the craft is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list.

The Ecuadorian ID card, issued by the Registro Civil once your visa is granted. Banks, the IESS, the SRI and employers all work from the cédula number rather than your passport.

The unified basic salary, USD 482 for 2026. The pensioner and rentista visa thresholds are three SBU of permanent income — USD 1,446 a month — which is the number every prospective retiree here needs first.

A savings and credit cooperative. Ecuador's cooperative sector is unusually large and the biggest of them all, JEP, was founded in a rural parish of Cuenca in 1971 and is headquartered here. Different regulator from the banks — know which one holds your money.

The municipal mobility company. It runs vehicle registration, the annual technical inspection, parking and traffic enforcement in the canton. Your driving licence still comes from the national agency, the ANT.

Cuenca's light rail line, running 10.5 km and 27 stops across the city since May 2020. A ride is USD 0.35, which is well below cost — the municipality subsidises it to the tune of roughly USD 1.5 million a year.

The cliff along the Tomebamba river where the colonial city ends in a wall of hanging houses. The path along the bottom is the city's spine for walking, running and getting your bearings.

Hominy — large hulled maize kernels, boiled. It is the staple starch of the southern sierra and turns up as mote pillo with egg, mote sucio with pork fat, or simply alongside everything. Ordering it is a small act of local citizenship.

Whole roast pork carved to order at a market stall with mote, potato cake and pickled onion. Sunday food, market food, and the thing to eat at the Mercado 10 de Agosto.