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Published: November 29th 2008
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Thanksgiving Dinner
Me, Peter, Tamara, Christoph and Kay I am pleased to report a couple of great days have passed here in Cuenca, Ecuador. On Thanksgiving day morning I woke up about 5am, which still gave me the needed 8 hours of solid, wonderful sleep I had been dreaming about (so many puns!). Got checkouted and to the Riobamba Train station at quarter 'til 6am. I just walked along the line of buses getting ready to leave, the first guy yelling "Quito!" to which I responded "Cuenca?" he point down the line, then again to the next guy "Cuenca?", again pointed to the next bus, finally at the end of the line of buses there was no one standing there.
A guy ran out of the depot and headed toward the last bus, I asked again, "Cuenca?" he muttered no, I think, then said the name of another town and waved me on the bus. Okay, so as usual I went with it. The guy came to collect fees, I said "Cuenca?" a final time, he shook his head no and said the name of another town(the bus was already moving at this point), I asked "South?", he shook yes and I felt like at least I was headed in the right direction. After a few hours we pulled into a town, a women in the row next to me politely shouted a bunch of stuff in Spanish with the name Cuenca mixed in, I quickly jumped off the bus, pack in tow, and immediately found a bus ticket window (conveniently located in a snack shop) and got my way to Cuenca.
The rest of my time here has been full of good luck like that. I wanted to meet some friends I'd made on the jungle tour, we planned on emailing and possibly getting together for dinner. After a grueling walk from the bus station (my pack is heavy) I made it to my hostel, nicely located on the river, and left to find a internet shop. Low and behold, the first people I see as I exited the hostel, Kay and Christoph(my German friends from the
jungle tour), just strolling down the road. Perfect! I caught them as they were checking out tours for Cajas National Park, walked into the tour company, set up a tour and made sure they would leave me in the park to camp over night, which is exactly what I will be doing. After and nice afternoon of strolling around Cuenca, checking out churches, parks and doing a lot of people watching I met Kay, Christoph, and two Portland, OR, natives Tamara and Peter for an excellent Thankgiving dinner of bland but edible chicken skewers, Ecuadorian music and a few Ecuadorian beers.
Today was a long bus ride to Incapirca, the most important Inca ruin (according to all the guide books) in Ecuador. Very interesting place, I really liked it but the drive took up most of the day. I arrived back in Cuenca at around 4 with the hope of going to at least one, just one of the many museums or churchs around this town. A last minute descision to try and make one before it closed, partly fueled by caffine and partly by the desire to actually go inside a building for reasons other then food or
beverage, I made it to the Museo del Banco Central. The descriptions of the Museum are good, it had a lot of interesting displays on indigenous tribes and other artifacts and I knew there was an Inca ruin of sorts behind the building. After wandering through the museum, trying to read Spanish and enjoying the bit of the English info they provided I had left about 30 minutes to check out the back. I sauntered behind the building, walked through a gate and saw a bit of a wall and some paths that were Inca remains. Luckily I followed it around the corner of the building where I saw more, then made my way up a hill to see a suprisingly impressive stretch of gardens at the bottom of the hill that had a path following the Inca stone walls of a city named Pumapungo. It was truly wonderful. The garden was in phenomenal condition, perfectly maintained having a huge variety of plants, with sections that showed the Andean person's agriculture offerings in true rows just as a farm would have been. The garden and hill sat up against the Rio Tomebamba River, with winding paths and stone walls and
steps. I was awestruck, I had no idea this was so expansive, well maintained and interesting. I was really dissappointed that: One, I didn´t have my camera and Two, I had less then 30 minutes to enjoy this beautiful place. My regret was sufficiently squashed by the fact that I got to see it at all. As I quickly made my way through the variety of gardens and plants of the park I saw a building at one end. I started to head back seeing as it was almost closing time but u-turned it back to the building, right there was a bird santuary. I saw Eagles, parrots and a variety of others.
The suprise of the "Pumapunga Archaelogical Park" has been one of the best of my trip. So much to enjoy in one area, even if only for a brief amount of time.
So as I wrapped up my last evening in Cuenca I met with a small but challenging defeat. Last night I want to try Cuy (pronounced Koo-Ee) but the company I was with didn't share my interest so this evening I went to a restuarant that specialized in it where unfortunately they were
not serving it tonight. I am down but not out, I shall dine on the South American cuisine of Guinea Pig, Oh Yes I shall!
Off to Cajas tomorrow, then immediately to the coast on Sunday via a 12-18 hour bus ride.
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