Advertisement
Published: April 27th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Well we actually have a weekend to spend in Cuenca instead of rushing off somewhere as Lyn from GAP is coming out to check that all our placements are ok. Had the morning off school as well on Friday as the teachers had some meal thing to go to for all teachers of disabled children in Cuenca. Really quite random but I'm not going to argue with time off.
Lou and I headed into town to go to an internet cafe to call home before going for ice creams. Really starting to be a bad habit! Next we walked down to the river to find a Panama Hat shop which turned out to be a shop/museum/workshop/cafe so all good.
Had fun trying them all on (although technically they are not Panama hats at all, they are an Ecuadorian invention). They're either
sombrero de paja toquilla (toquilla straw-hat) or Montecristis named after the most famous hat making town in Ecuador. The mistake came from the Spanish importing them from Ecuador via Panama. Here endeth the lesson.
Still, very good place and, despite some of the ridiculous ones the guy there was encouraging us to try on, I only
The biggest sombrero in the world!
Is it me or do I look like a mushroom in this?! bought one very sensible one. Lou couldn't decide so she ended up with two.
Got home in time for lunch before having to go out and find the Censo card place. According to the Sophies it was get on the bus and get off when you go round the big roundabout. Well, we managed to leave Cuenca behind, cross a river and end up in the countryside with billboards advertising Cajas ecotourism so we quickly got off that bus and onto one going the opposite way. Good thing we did as we were heading to Sauyusi, some random little village outside of Cuenca. Finally managed to find the place (although I'm convinced we never went round a roundabout and are nowhere near as stupid as everyone else seemed to think!) where we had to traipse up to the third floor to get a piece of paper, traipse back down to get photocopies of everything and then back up to get the piece of paper stamped. Even after all this, it turned out they didn't have any cards at the moment so we have to go back in fifteen days time and in the meantime have a piece of paper
that serves the same purpose (although I can guarantee that no-one will belive us and they won't actually do us any good). Still, as we were very near to the hotel we popped in to see Lyn who had arrived from Quito that morning. Stopped to say hi before going to a deli for snacks.
Got more buses into town and then onto the shopping centre where we went bowling. Got given some lovely bowling socks while we were at it. Managed to come joint first with Matt although at the expense of my nails. Then more buses back into town to La ViƱa for Italian food and red wine.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.317s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 25; qc: 144; dbt: 0.2138s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Jeannie (alias mum)
non-member comment
Toadstools or mushrroms?
Well Katherine all I can say I am glad you did not buy THAT hat! Customs and airport control would not have coped with it at all on the way back. Love the table of hats. My little monsters will certainly appreciate that for discussion on Monday! I'll let you know their comments!