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The weekend deluge damaged roads, disrupted water service and forced evacuations in one of Ecuador’s most important tourism centers.
Well, look how far we’ve come! This issue marks the 52nd issue of our 10th year of The Cuenca Dispatch. I’ve told this story before, but the newspaper actually started as a way to entertain our customers—maybe bring a smile to their faces while they waited to be served at our restaurant, The Vegetable...
The qualities drawing new residents and investment are also pushing housing costs, outward expansion and traffic pressure.
Azuay is among the provinces hit as the country enters the phenomenon’s initial development phase. Ecuador’s rainy-season problems are arriving months earlier than normal, and the latest national figures show that the developing El Niño is already producing consequences well beyond isolated flooding. By October 25th, the National Secretariat for Risk Management had recorded...
The November 2nd and 3rd holidays create a long weekend, with another nationwide day off coming November 20th. Ecuador is heading into one of its longest holiday weekends of the second half of the year, and Cuenca is at the center of it. The national holidays for the Day of the Dead on Monday,...
Deals with the United States, Canada and the UAE remain stuck at different stages of Ecuador’s approval process. Ecuador’s exporters are asking the Constitutional Court to accelerate work on three trade agreements that could affect some of the country’s most important non-oil exports, arguing that delays are leaving Ecuador at a competitive disadvantage to...
Eggs, rice, fruit and seafood are getting more expensive, squeezing neighborhood shops and lunchtime restaurants. Sofía Arévalo used to spend about $70 stocking her small shop in Cuenca’s Las Acacias neighborhood. These days, the same trip to the Feria Libre is costing her more than $100. Something has to give: either customers pay more...
The José Carrasco Arteaga Hospital is buying specialized medicines, surgical equipment and devices for long-term care. Cuenca’s largest Social Security hospital has spent more than $2 million on medicines and medical equipment, including costly drugs used to treat cancer, hemophilia and chronic illnesses. The Ecuadorian Social Security Institute, or IESS, announced that $2,050,784.88 was...
The country’s largest hydroelectric complex is being managed hour by hour as officials try to preserve dwindling water reserves. The water behind Ecuador’s Mazar dam has fallen so far that the operators of one of the country’s most important electricity reservoirs are conserving it whenever they can. That may mean temporarily stopping generation at...
Judges are challenging the restructuring of Ecuador’s specialized corruption courts, while the Judicatura says every pending case still has a judge. A restructuring of Ecuador’s specialized corruption and organized-crime courts has triggered a constitutional fight over hundreds of criminal cases, with judges taking the dispute to the Constitutional Court while the National Assembly’s Justice...
Rising rivers damaged at least 14 homes, destroyed one building and forced evacuations in communities west of Cuenca. Heavy rain and rapidly rising rivers damaged homes and forced evacuations in the western portion of Cuenca canton this week, turning the national El Niño red alert into a direct local emergency for communities in Molleturo....
Mobile operators must strengthen identity verification for new and replacement SIM cards as authorities target extortion, fraud and anonymous phone use. Ecuador is tightening the rules for obtaining and replacing cellphone SIM cards, requiring telecommunications companies to use stronger identity checks—including biometric verification—as the government tries to make it harder for criminals to obtain...
A year after stopping the mining project, water defenders say the underlying concessions remain and want them canceled permanently. A victory that did not end the dispute One year after a massive Cuenca protest helped stop the Loma Larga mining project, the fight over the Kimsacocha páramo has shifted to a more complicated question:...
One local center says it is owed more than $4 million while patients fear unpaid bills could disrupt lifesaving care. Patients return to the Governor’s office Kidney patients and their families returned to the Azuay Governor’s office on September 29th to demand that the government pay private dialysis centers that provide treatment to patients...
Cuenca firefighters warn that agricultural burns, wind and extremely dry vegetation are keeping the province at high risk. More than 600 hectares burned in Cuenca Forest fires have burned more than 1,700 hectares of vegetation across Azuay this year, including more than 600 hectares in Cuenca, as firefighters warn that dry vegetation and strong...
Prosecutors seek a formal hearing and temporary detention as Zamora disputes allegations over unexplained assets. Prosecutors seek formal charges The criminal investigation into suspended Cuenca Mayor Cristian Zamora advanced this week after the Azuay Provincial Prosecutor’s Office asked a judge to set a date and time for a hearing to formulate charges against him...
The Assembly approved updated rules for delays, cancellations, overbooking and baggage, but presidential action comes next. Assembly approves sweeping aviation overhaul Ecuador’s National Assembly approved a new Organic Civil Aviation Law on September 24th, replacing and consolidating a legal framework that has governed the sector for nearly two decades. The 215-article bill was approved...
Authorities say most apprehensions involved alleged crimes rather than violations of Ecuador’s nighttime movement restrictions. Nearly 2,000 apprehensions in 10 days Ecuador’s police and military reported 1,989 apprehensions during security operations carried out between September 17th and 26th under the country’s targeted state of emergency and nighttime curfew. The figures, released by the government’s...
About 150 large electricity users will disconnect weekly as Ecuador tries to stretch hydroelectric reserves through December. A different kind of power rationing Ecuador is preparing to impose electricity restrictions on some of the country’s largest industrial consumers beginning this week, part of a government strategy aimed at preserving the Mazar reservoir and preventing...
Stronger consumption, investment and exports have improved this year’s outlook, while climate risks loom over 2027. Economy performing better than expected Ecuador’s economy is on track to grow faster this year than previously expected, with the Central Bank raising its 2026 growth forecast from 2.5% to 2.7%. The September revision reflects stronger household consumption,...
Older residents say reorganized services are making care harder to reach, while IESS says the changes were required. Retirees take their complaints to IESS Retirees in Cuenca are challenging changes at the city’s IESS Centro de Atención al Adulto Mayor, saying the reorganization of medical and physiotherapy services has made it more difficult for...
Extra, Ecopaís and diesel are slightly cheaper through October 11, while premium gasoline moves in the opposite direction. Drivers in Ecuador are seeing two very different fuel-price trends this month. Beginning September 12th, the price of Extra and Ecopaís gasoline fell from $3.24 to $3.21 per gallon, while Premium diesel dropped from $3.18 to...
The $90 million proposal promises more electricity and water security for Cuenca, but environmental opposition has not disappeared. A hydroelectric project that once stalled amid strong community and environmental opposition is back on the government’s agenda. The Noboa administration and Elecaustro have revived the Soldados–Yanuncay hydroelectric project, a multipurpose development planned for the upper...
Warmer Pacific waters are disrupting fisheries, pushing some fish prices sharply higher while flooding the market with shrimp. El Niño is no longer simply a forecast of what might happen to Ecuador later this year. Its effects are already showing up in the country’s fishing industry — and at seafood counters. Ocean temperatures off...
A Manta judge is demanding answers about the U.S. operations as another 34 fishermen return to port and both governments defend a rapidly expanding anti-drug campaign. Four boats in nine days A fast-moving series of U.S. military operations against Ecuadorian fishing vessels in the eastern Pacific has turned into a legal and diplomatic controversy...
Aeroregional is expected to operate the short Peru route, but Mariscal La Mar still has to complete airport work and obtain authorization for international operations. Cuenca is trying to turn a one-time surge of travel interest into something the city has pursued for years: a workable international air route from Mariscal La Mar Airport....
Second-quarter exports reached $10.18 billion, led by oil and shrimp, while record imports narrowed the trade surplus by 59% from a year earlier. Ecuador exported more goods in the second quarter of 2026 than in any previous quarter in the Central Bank’s historical series, a headline that looks unequivocally positive until the other side...
The former president will remain in Ecuador for now, his attorney says, while the first-instance bribery judgment also orders more than $163 million in restitution across 20 convicted defendants. Former president Lenín Moreno was sentenced to five years in prison on August 28th after a National Court of Justice tribunal found him guilty of...
Imports averaged about 301.5 megawatts from August 23rd through 27th and reached about 380 megawatts on August 28th, while Mazar remains well above its critical level. Ecuador sharply increased electricity imports from Colombia during the final week of August as the country approached the dry season that historically puts its hydroelectric system under the...
José Carrasco Arteaga is part of the first five-hospital rollout, giving some lower-complexity adult patients a remote consultation after an in-person triage. IESS has begun a teletriage and telemedicine program at Hospital José Carrasco Arteaga in Cuenca, part of an effort to keep lower-complexity medical problems from consuming specialist emergency resources at Ecuador’s largest...