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Published: July 20th 2006
The New cathedral Cuenca
This is the one too heavy due to the marble everywhere. It is amazing in side. We preferred it to the gold leaf everywhere.Hello Again
I should say that I realize that these blogs are frequent and long which may not be ideal for those of you with jobs (teachers you have no excuse for not reading all of these...twice) but for those of you who know me, I have never managed to actually keep a journal while travelling, so this is it. That´s why there may be more info in here than you´re always interested in.
Our Spanish lessons are going swimmingly! We´ve had two and have our last one today (3 lessons oughta be enough to learn a language) we learned (well, we were presented with) a TON of useful information yesterday so we need to devote today to sitting in cafes(we´ve managed to find a couple) and actually learning it. Shelagh has even managed to say Escocia so things are looking up.
Our spanish teacher took us on a city tour yesterday that was great. The city center of Cuenca is a Unesco World Heritage site (I had actually originally written that in the last blog and then Shelagh said ¨Is it, I don´t think it is¨and made me delete it but HA! I was right) We went
to a place that makes Panama hats. ¨Panama?¨ You say. ¨Yes, Panama¨. The Panama hat is actually from Ecuador. However, Panama was the large Port in this part of the world so they were shipped out of there and thus the name. They are hand made (woven from this straw stuff, bleached, pressedinto a mold, steamed etc) and can be sized incredibly accurately using this medievil torture device. This place sells average ones for about $15 but has others that sell for $150. The cheap ones take a day to weave and the expensive ones take someone ONE MONTH to weave!
We went back to the beautiful Cathedral that we had visited the other day but we learned that it had been designed by this German guy who isn´t actually an architect. He designed another church in Cuenca and quite a few others in south america along with somehouses, buildings etc. This cathedral is amazing, constructed almost entirely of marble. However, it´s too heavy. It´s not that the ground is too soft, it´s that the building is actually too heavy and so they can´t finish it. Perhaps he should have consulted an architect on that one.
Then we
View from the hotel, Cuenca
I liked the setting in the foothills of the Andes went to this other little church but didn´t go inside. Instead we went to the vendor outside that sells ¨magic plant water¨or at least that´s what I call it. Keep in mind that our spanish is muay mal but basically it´s a healing juice made from some kind of water from the church, plant juices, honey, gelatin and god only knows what else. It cures problems with your head, stomach or whatever else. In the whole scheme of water in south america this is about the dodgiest we´ve seen. I took a couple sips (and then couldn´t get the tast of dirt out of my mouth for the rest of the day), Shelagh (the somewhat skeptical doctor) wouldn´t touch it, and the others in the group drank their whole cup. Then we went into this strange little shrine where in the corner of it you can buy various healing items from the nuns. However, for some reason you´re not allowed to see the nuns, so you put your money on the counter and this large turnstyle things pushes your money in and the goods out. Apparently they also sell jam.
After the tour we went back to our spanish
school and watched a film. It was interesting in that it was about the Shaman of the Indiginous culture here. However, it was in spanish so we only caught pieces. What we did catch is that for anything that ails you you go to the Shaman and he beats your body with a bundle of special plants with medicinal properties. Then you wash your hands with holy water and rub it through your hair. They also take some holy water into their mouths and then spit it all over you. These are the standard introductory practices and then what follows can differ. Usually, the Shaman will take an egg, raw, and rub it around your whole body (I think they´re chanting out devil etc as they do this). Then they crack the egg and depending on what they see, they diagnose your problems. This will cost you about $1. Alternatively, you can get the guinnea pig scan which I mentioned before but we actually saw it on the movie. They scan you with the guinnea pig and then cut it open and expose the innards, again to determine what ails ya. This, obviously being more technologically advanced and accurate, costs
Fruit Market
I kept asking what things are...doesn´t much help when you haven´t heard of it (and it´s in spanish) $2. Oh, I forgot to mention, the whole time the Shaman is smoking a cigarette and blowing it in your face. I´m kinda making fun of it here (in case that didn´t come through on the email) but it´s actually very interesting and an essential part of the indiginous culture. The culture including language and dress has been well maintained here and is still very alive, unlike what has happened in North America.
whew...its Shelagh here...I managed eventually to reclaim the blog from Heather.
Today we had a great day. we went hiking in the National Park of Cajas (for those Neurologists reading this..I did spend the last week calling it Cajal...some of those useless facts are still in there somewhere). It is an amazing place set in the middle of the Andes at around 4100m high. It is almost like the moors in the UK, but with lakes everywhere. We had to get up at the crack of dawn to go since fog comes in every afternoon. The views were amazing. We didn´t see another hiker on our entire hike. The plants were pretty with bright colors and then cacti on the path. The cows looked pretty
Mine´s bigger than yours...
These guys are everywhere: in front of every bank, office, jewelry store, etc it´s just the size of gun that varies skinny.
We didn´t see many other animales - but lots of poop. Much of which was porbably rabit...but we wondered about wild guinea pigs. Having commented how nice it was to not have to worry about bears we discovered that pumas also inhabit the park. Luckily they didn´t like our smell or something like that. Its crazy to think that our hike today was all at 3 times the height of anything in the UK. This park is on the continental divide and everything east of here runs into the amazon which is just crazy - see the sign at the bottom of this blog.
Well today is our last full day in Ecuador since we fly to Lima tomorrow. We´re getting really excited about the Peru leg of our trip.
Hope all is well - the galapagos photos are now attached and have come out pretty well.
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Richard
non-member comment
I'm Jealous
It looks beautiful there. Sounds like you are having a great time, I want to still be on holidays. I think Heather, you can have the magic plant healing water, and the taste of dirt. I'll have a cerveza please!!