Made it to Cuenca

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Foreword: this is Martina writing. Josh has to work for a couple of hours so this promises to be a long and detailed - and naturally, less funny - account of our last couple of days. But don´t worry, I promise you'll be graced with his hilarity on Monday when we´re back from camping.

After writing y'all yesterday we headed up to the Instituto Geografico Militar, which is this really neat place on top of a hill in Quito where one can obtain amazing maps of Ecuador. We had to go there to get trail maps for two national parks we'll be camping in over the next week. They are huge, incredibly detailed maps, and only cost two bucks a piece. On our way out of the building to head to the airport an officer in the military approached us and started speaking to us in English (since we are so visibly gringo), and he ended up giving us a ride halfway there! It was our first of nothing but amazingly friendly encounters with locals in this country. It turns out he had served in a peacekeeping force in Cote d'Ivoire and just wanted to practice his English. He asked us if we were married, and Josh said we were holding off until Josh could get plastic surgery since I find him too ugly. Naturally Josh manages to make people laugh no matter where we are or what situation we are in - even the little kids that approach us (constantly) selling candy or shoeshines (we both are wearing sandals) who try to be all serious end up cracking, either because Josh makes some kind of comprehensible joke, or because they just find his efforts endearing.

Anyway, so we got to the airport having no idea what to expect...we had bought tickets over the internet for a domestic flight on an Ecuadorian airline, but never got any sort of confirmation email or anything. Everything worked out basically like it does everywhere, it was an incredibly smooth process and we arrived in Cuenca on time. And, we were on a brand new state-of-the-art Embraer jet, which was reassuring to those of us who are terrified of flying 😊

Cuenca is absolutely beautiful, we both strongly prefer it to Quito. It´s very walkable, has some incredibly beautiful buildings, and so far really yummy food. And, it´s surrounded by mountains. Here are some photos of the city, we´ll add more in the next posting on Cuenca. Oh, and the place where we had the fantastic traditional meal pictured here is (interestingly) called 'El Tequila' - it's a bit of a hike from downtown Cuenca, at Gran Colombia 20-59. Probably a 30 min. walk from downtown, in an area where there are no gringos in sight. It was probably one of the more expensive meals we´ll have here ($21 total, which included about five courses, bottled sparkling water, and a small beer) but absolutely worth it. One thing to note, there is no menu per se - they just serve you whatever the dinner is that day. (I omitted one thing from the list of dishes they served us, because neither of us cared for it: locro, which is a traditional soup dish that can be made with any number of things (chicken feet, tripe), and in our case was chock full of pork rinds!)

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Photos

Not so great shot of the Andes from the plane
What few breaks there were in the clouds were incredibly beautiful!

Blurry shot of us in Cuenca
This is around the corner from our fabulous hostel, Macondo. We were aiming to catch the beautiful mountaintops that are visible from the end of every street...oh well!

First traditional southern Ecuadorian meal
And boy was it yummy. Delicious tamales with chicken and peas (made with banana leaves rather than the Mexican style corn husks), some fresh corn and beans (o.k., the beans were so-so), grilled pork with hominy, and all served with 'aji' (a delicious condiment used with everything in Ecuador), and Ecuadorian Pilsener.

Bill Gates Centro de Educacion
Who knew!