Cuenca

This past Thursday through Sunday was spent in Cuenca with 7 of my fellow FB compatriots. Vikki happens to be living and working there and thus we all had a free place to crash! It was a full apartment to say the least, Martin and I slept in a large closet, but hey, cozy can be a good thing.

Cuenca is a fair ways from Quito, about 10 hours by bus, but Panamericana offered a night bus departing at 10pm for only $9 that was just too hard to pass up. You can just sleep the whole time and arrive to enjoy the day! This is in theory, in hindsight however, the $50-60 dollar plane flights might have been better for me. Let me explain; buses in Latin America were not designed for anyone over about 5’8” and being a hair under 6’3” resulted in my knees being crammed against the forward seat while the headrest hit squarely in my shoulder blades. I may have slept an hour total; this being the optimistic estimate.

Our first foray into the city later on Thursday offered some great views of the historical center. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.



(Standard Cuenca street)



(Church spires)



(Front view of Cuenca's most impressive church)



(More cool looking colonial buildings seen from the central square)


Friday morning we decided to forgo any attempt to catch up on sleep, got up at 6:15am, and caught a bus up to the nearby Paramo of Cajas National Park. The weather usually turns nasty by mid-afternoon but with our early start we hit it perfectly.



(Puya plant with lake view. The puya's stalk is a once-in-a-lifetime reproductive thrust from which the plant dies shortly thereafter.)



(Sweet view!)



(It's amazing how much water is in the Paramo, it really is a giant sponge. The Cajas park area provides over 60% of Cuenca's water.)

Later that night we took two taxis to get into town for dinner. Our group beat the other one by about 15 minutes in what should have only been a 15-minute drive to begin with. How is this possible you may ask? Well, traffic was abysmal, so our taxi took a “shortcut,” backing the wrong way down a one-way street with his parking lights on, cars whizzing by us in the other (correct) direction. Another only in Latin America moment.

Saturday morning Martin and I went on a half hour run, exploring the town. We found the local outdoor goods market, apparently THE place to be on a Saturday morning. After returning and breaking our fast with the others Emma, Juliet and I headed to check out the local rock climbing gym. As it was feriado (Festivals de Cuenca celebrating its independence) the place was nearly deserted and free of charge for the weekend, score! We climbed for an hour or so before joining the others for lunch. It’s amazing how sore one’s forearms get from climbing if you haven’t done it in oh, a few years or so☺



(Me, climbing.)


Saturday had the most concerts/contests/people gatherings and we checked out a few. Colorful, loud, and exciting sum them up quite well.



(Whole-roasted pigs, they were everyone, I ate some, it was good, and I'm not sick from it, yes!)



(The next act, ready to go!)


I caught another night bus back on Sunday, didn’t sleep hardly at all, and then went almost straight to the lab from 9:00am till 5:30pm. As I finish writing this I really don’t know how I haven’t passed out yet. Should sleep well.

Goodnight.