Ecuador in 6 days!

Ecudor - Cuenca and Quito
We had decided before arriving in Ecuador, that we would not stay long. And as the heading says.... we spent 6 days!! We began in Cuenca, which is the third largest city and it is a beautiful one, with less crime associated with it! The first night we went to a hotel recommended by a taxi driver as being the cheapest ....... it was very cheap at $4 a night each, but also pretty terrible! The floors were sticky, the room was anything but hygenic and the night security guy seemed a bit nuts! Needless to say we began our search for somewhere else the very next morning! We scoured the city and funnily enough the last place we checked was right across the road from the first place, was also $4 a night and actually really good for the price! So we settled in and explored the city! Cuenca claims to be the origin of the Panama Hat, named for it's journey down the Panama Canal, rather than it actually being from Panama! We visited the traditional Panama Hat makers and were pretty impressed! We also spent some time in the very popular Cuenca ice-cream shop! Which I was also pretty impressed with! Our first taste of really good ice-cream in months! Yes, I ate a lot of it! There was more to see around Cuenca, but it was money saving time, so off we went to Quito.
The bus ride was really cool.... driving above and through the clouds! Quito, I wasn't so impressed with.... but to be honest I think I was PMSing off my head, so I wouldn't have been very impressed with anywhere those couple of days! I guess after Peru, where the people had been really friendly, Quito also felt like a bit of a cold city, where everyone just stared at us a lot! And the hotel we stayed at must of had a drainage problem, as all night our room would smell like toilet unless we got up periodically and ran the shower!!! However, there was a great breakfast place in the old city that had obviously been going for years, where people share the tables and they serve a terrific juice of tomate de arbol (a tree tomatoe.... we think it is persimmon!). And the dinner we had in the new city was our first taste of real steak since argentina, so that was pretty exciting! It was run by a little oldish guy who really made the place.........ahhh real steaks!
So.... that was Ecuador..... on to Colombia (I have been waiting so long for this moment!!) x

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