Trying to get over altitude.

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We have been at altitude several times and here it was no easier to get used to. Cuenca is about 2500 meters above sea level. We get to our Hostel and the room is 2 floors up. This means we get to our room and have to lean over the furniture gasping for breath for several minutes. The first day or so if you walk on the flat really slowly you can survive without looking like a real cardiac person. Any hill or hard work and there we are puffing away. I tried this time without altitude tablets because the last time I got side effects, tingling across my face (I thought I had some sort of food poisoning) and then the tingling moved to the tops of my feet and fingertips. Altitude also has another serious side effect on both Paul and me. We loose our appetites, if we have breakfast we can go until about 4pm and have another bite to eat and that is it for the day.

We stayed 4 days in Cuenca, never did any tours, only walked around. We went to the Panama Hat museum and factory and I bought a really nice blue hat (that I left on the bus when we left town). We also walked along the river that is a tourist thing to do, apparently if you walk at 7am you can see the women doing their washing. I didn't feel like watching women work so we did the walk one afternoon. We came across an outdoor concert over the river that we watched for awhile and ate some of the fruit for sale at the stalls. They had several different musicians and singers and some sort of beauty queen was up on the stage. On the walk along the river we came across a small area of Inca and pre Inca ruins, we were quite Inca'ed out at this stage so on we went.

This is a really nice city with brick tile roofs and lovely iron work over the windows. Ecuador buildings appear to be built better than elsewhere on our travels. More steel in the brick constructions.

We bused to Riobamba to do the train trip today, but it was fully booked, so we are hanging out to do it on Friday. More update after our train ride to the Devils Nose.

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