Advertisement
Published: February 9th 2016
New Cathedral
Cuenca's biggest church.From everyone that I had talked to and from everything that I had read, Ecuador sounded like a dangerous place. Overnight buses were apparently prone to hijacking and items have been reported as stolen from under your seat! I knew not to trust one bus company that had a lot of bad reviews including the drugging of passengers and subsequent stealing from them (CIFA - guess you can't trust any organisation with a acronym ending in -IFA) so I went with one taken by a guy I had met at the hostel who had no problems with them.
And I had no problems with them in the end myself, as did Becca and Niels, both of whom were following me to Cuenca having met them at the hostel in
Mancora. I didn't sleep great though, as I was now sans iPhone and music, and I was also keen to keep an eye on my stuff.
Billed as Ecuador's most beautiful city, I saw nothing in it to dispute this. Pretty almost throughout the whole old town, Cuenca resembles
Cusco a little, just without all the Inca stuff and with a bit more Spanish colonial stuff. The place is neat, tidy
Tsantsa
Shrunken trophy head on display at the Museo Pumapongo. and very well kept - even if the exhaust fumes emitted by the local buses were shockingly dirty.
Also like Cusco, Cuenca is at altitude albeit 900m lower, at 2,500m. Which was rather annoying for me, since having got to
Lima, Huanchaco and Mancora and having been in the sea, I thought I had seen the last of it. Little did I know.
It also rather annoying for Becca too, as she wasn't feeling 100%!e(MISSING)ither.
I was still well enough to think straight obviously as I came up with a financial solution for my lack of an iPhone.
Having just sold some shares I own to pay back some of my student loan back in New Zealand, I decided that the loan could wait - and that I would use some of those funds to replace my iPhone instead. This would ensure that my travel budget remains unaffected.
Genial! Only problem was that the official Apple reseller here in Cuenca had sold out of iPhones with no more to arrive for another month; and in any case, it was ridiculously expensive at US$1,270. I managed to find a shop willing to sell me one for just US$870 and
Colonial Architecture
There is an abundance of it in Cuenca. I was about to buy it - only for the shop not to have the colour I wanted. If I am going to pay US$870 for something, it had better be the right colour!
Siestas and Sundays mean that the shops in Cuenca are closed more oftern than they are open - something I found frustratingly irritating - which meant that I now had to wait until Quito, the place I am visiting next, to continue my iPhone hunt. Even museums were closed on Sundays, which meant that I had to miss out on visiting a couple.
One museum that wasn't closed however was the Museo Pumapongo, which was perhaps one of the best museums I have visited in South America - and it was free too!
Inside the Niemeyer-designed building are exhibits detailing all of the different indigenous groups of Ecuador. I didn't know there were so many! The most interesting exhibits however, are the
tsantas, or shrunken heads - the practice of decapitating enemies and shrinking their heads to be kept as trophies.
And as well as an exhibition on the history of Ecuadorian currency - unbeknownst to me, Ecuador are now on the US Dollar -
Inside The Cathedral
Surprisingly as impressive inside as it is on the outside. the museum also includes access to the ruins of the old Incan city of Tomebamba, which is out the back. They have turned it into a park space as well, letting the public sit on benches by the lakes that once supplied the city's water; and there is even a collection of various birds native to Ecuador including hawks, eagles, parrots, peacocks and macaws - so it has a mini zoo as well! Including two llamas! An excellent museum, definitely worth a visit.
On my first day in Cuenca, I experienced what was probably the worst storm I have experienced so far. The rain was so heavy and the thunder and lightning was so fierce that Calle Larga became a river in a matter of minutes. The afternoon rain was a daily occurrence as well, Cuenca being a city seemingly subject to convectional rainfall.
Anyway, it was after this storm that Ned - another guy staying at our hostel who was staying with us in Mancora - Niels and I decided to have a drink at one of Cuenca's cool bars. And they do have a few too - one was a micro-brewery whose beers certainly weren't the worst
Frutilado Building
Beautiful building dating back to 1886 in the main plaza of Parque Calderon. I have tasted, and also there was a nice cocktail bar where I decided to down a couple of caipirinhas (which weren't anywhere as good as the ones in Brazil).
The three of us got on quite well and definitely had a few laughs.
On my penultimate day in Cuenca, Becca and I decided to go on a walk to see some of the main sights.
We started with the pleasant river side stroll down Paseo 3 de Noviembre and ended it at the main square of Parque Abdon Calderon where we sat down and listened to some buskers. Sitting at that park, listening to the singing and acoustic guitar, I had another "present" moment that you sometimes have as a traveller; a moment where you remember where you are and are living completely in the present. These moments are often the best moments, as I realised that I was in Cuenca, Ecuador, listening to some local music in a tidy park. It was a moment I'm sure Becca appreciated too.
En route to park, we visited the central market, which is always the most colourful, vibrant and lively place in any South American city. The products on sale
Cute Balconies
More wonderful architecture from the streets of Cuenca. and how everything is 'organised' is always interesting to watch.
Just like
Sucre's central market, Cuenca's has an aisle of fruit stalls selling
ensaladas de frutas which I once again found irresistable. Unlike Sucre's central market however, the fruit salad I had didn't match the standard set in Bolivia, either in size or taste.
After three nights and four days in Cuenca however, I was pretty bored. It was time to move on. I also made the decision here to skip the Amazon trip I had planned to do from Quito - it will now form part of a future trip when I'm older, involving a visit to Bahia in Brazil and the Galapagos Islands - in order try and get to Colombia as soon as I could. I have heard only good things about Colombia and knowing that I would ideally want to be back in Europe by May, I resolved right there and then to move quicker and spend more time exploring Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean.
It would mean passing through Ecuador pretty quickly, which I have found to be not so different from Peru. Maybe the people here are a little fairer in complexion,
but that's about it.
Maybe Quito, my next destination, will change my view on this...
Hasta luego,
Derek
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0374s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
