Cynthia:  After railing about the mainstream media using sensational headlines in our last blog, that’s the title you come up with? “Shocking revelation?” “Addicted?”

Edd:  Ha! I did it on purpose as a spoof of what we wrote about. The idea came from a recent conversation we had while sitting on the terrace enjoying breakfast. It was a pleasant sunny morning—in the middle of February I might add—and you said, “You know what? We’re addicted to this weather in Cuenca.”

C:  We had just returned from a long family visit that included two snowstorms at our daughter’s home in New Jersey and a Caribbean cruise. So we were exposed to both ends of the temperature spectrum. Maybe “addicted” was a little strong, but over the years we’ve developed a preference for what we call “Goldilocks weather.”

E:  I actually think that “addicted” is spot on. What’s the harm...

Ever since last August, when an anti-crime presidential candidate was assassinated by gang members, Ecuador has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Inflammatory headlines like, “Ecuador gripped by drug gang violence,” “Gang warfare breaks out in Ecuador,” and “Surge in gang violence upends life in Ecuador” (italics ours) paint a bleak picture of a country historically described as “muy tranquilo.”

We’ve received so many kind messages from friends and followers concerned about our safety. Shortly before our recent return home to Cuenca from a holiday visit in the States, a relative asked if we were comfortable going back in the midst of Ecuador’s “civil war.”

As 13+ year residents, we would like to share with you our expat perspective on how this mess started and what’s really going on in our adopted home country.

Ecuador is surrounded by the two largest cocaine producing countries in the...