Blogs from Cuenca, South, Ecuador, South America - page 41

So after a marathon bus journey we finally arrived in Cuenca, and jumped into a taxi to the closest and cheapest hostel...which didn´t turn out to be too bad...but it did have a cafe-restuarant in the middle, and all the rooms were off it...a little bizzare when you need an early night and you run to the bathroom in pjs and there´s men and women dressed up to go dancings....ohh well!! First day in Cuenca wasn´t spectacular, in fact, it pissed it down with rain the entire day....making sight seeing a little difficult...i managed to spend 3 and a half hrs on the internet though, updating blogs etc which made the day pass quite fast...is a strange town though Cuenca, everythings hidden away behind non-descript looking doors.. made looking for places to eat very hard ... read more

So when you last heard from us we were heading on from Banos to go and trek some of the Quilotoa Loop and thats exactly what we did! We got a bus from Banos to Latacunga and from there hitched to a little town called Quilotoa (obviously the base of the loop). The ride up itself was the highlight of the day with a million indigenous folk hitching in the same 4x4 pickup truck at various points on the journey. We were just stared at for 2 hours and also a little embarassed as only us english can be when in the 2 meter squared space of the truck one of the women started breast feeding! We stayed at a gorgeous little hostal run by the locals where we also joined them for home cooked ... read more

well we are in... (turns to kyle an stu...)... oh yeah cuenca... it is tht ethird largest city in ecuador and my favourite s far.. though guayquil dosen´t give it much competition... so anyways guayquil was fine not a whole lot to do but we managed t find a giatn cemetary with hundreds opf thousands of graves in it... it was pretty cool they were all stacked up like tiny appartments for the dead... but anyhow... we bussed to here uneventful beside the giant sculpture of a stack of chairs in the middle of nowhere... oh yeha and i was next to the random and fell asleep and woke as my head touched the old man next to me´s shoulder yeah he glared at me the rest of the way... so we made it here yesterday ... read more

Well, as we thought this weekend may of been our last in Cuenca we were well making the most of it and I went out 10 days in 12! Lots of fun was had though so its all good! I wont bore you with details but after all our partying we decided we would go and do something healthy on Sunday and went to Cajas! This is the massive national park just outside of Cuenca and is one of the "Things to do in Ecuador" malarkies.. So, we got to the bus terminal at 12 and got on the first bus. After a fairly lengthy argument about us actually living in Cuenca and therefore needing to pay $1.50 not the $10 tourist fee..we set off on our little adventure. Walked for a bit and then got ... read more

Well it has been a few weeks since we updated this blog which means that we now are at least 7 weeks behind, aaagh, where has the time gone? As we are using this blog to keep in touch and also as a diary for our own benefit (you see not just to brag to our working class friends) we will endeavor to catch up. Bear(no, not the naked kind) with us as you may receive the catch up blogs over the next week. This will certainly be a walk down memory lane for those who have been luckily(or unlucky) enough to be sharing some of these experiences with us. To catch up we will also leave out all the trivial detail and just mention the places that made an impression. After all our physical ... read more

After an arduous journey, in which we travelled by local minibus from Mancora to Tumbes and then by local bus from Tumbes (stopping to change bus in Machala), we finally arrived in Cuenca absolutely exhausted. Having done our research on the town prior to our arrival we knew where to stay - Posada del Angel - which didn´t disappoint - a great place in the heart of town. With not much daylight left we dropped our things and headed out to get our bearings and for dinner. It wasn´t long before we were back in the hostal with Av suffering mildly with altitude sickness - nothing a good night´s sleep didn´t fix. With only two nights in Cuenca we wasted no time in seeing the sights. Apart from being a lively, colourful city, Cuenca is ... read more