Cuenca

If you read our "Drive With Freddy" post earlier, you know we made it to Cuenca. Cuenca is beautiful! It's Ecuador's third largest city, after Guayaquil and Quito, but at 450,000 residents, it is far, far smaller than either of the two leading cities. Cuenca is also in the Ecuadorian highlands, and its elevation is fairly high: 8.400 feet. Cuenca's 'centro historico' is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site given its many historic buildings.

Our time in Cuenca was pretty chill, which we appreciated after our visit to Baños. Our first night in Cuenca, we ate at an Italian restaurant attached to our hotel (YES, Italian food!!). Thursday, our first full day in Cuenca, we rode a double-decker tour bus around town. It was a good way to see all the sights -- from the old town, to the Mirador (lookout) of Turi (a town in Cuenca), to the local mall (yes, that was on the bus tour, too -- just a drive-by), past the museums, through Gringoland (it's seriously a place; evidently lots of Americans and Canadians retire there), and back to the main square.

Standing atop Turi; Cuenca is behind us.

Cuenca: New town is at the bottom of the photo; old town is in the middle.

We just don't understand...what up with ALL those wires? We see this EVERYWHERE!

Driving down a Cuenca street on our bus tour. 

We tackled some homework and trip logistics that Thursday afternoon, walked around town to find dinner, came back to our hotel, played some Rummy, and hit the sack.

Friday morning, I woke up to light rain. I went out for a run anyway, and headed toward the Tomebamba River -- named after the Inca culture. The elevation did me no favors, and neither did the cobblestone pathway. 

The Tomebamba River. I ran alongside it during a run, and it's the most famous river in Cuenca.

Uhh, cobblestone path by the Tomebamba River. No doubt lovely to walk on. But running on it during the rain? No bueno.

Back at the hotel, we had a totally lazy breakfast (included in our nightly price -- I love it!), and Tim and I refilled our coffee cups just a few times. After breakfast, Tim walked down the street to the LatAm office to work out some of our upcoming flight issues. Taylor wrote a story on my laptop in the hotel room, and Wyatt and I read a book in the small sitting area just outside of our room. 

We roused ourselves a couple hours later to grab some lunch -- empanadas at Coco's Cafe (a cafe run on the bottom floor of a young family's home...like many eateries here) -- followed by a visit to Museo Pumapongo, one of Ecuador's most significant museums. On the second floor of this museum, we saw shrunken heads from the Shuar culture of the southern Oriente. The Shuar supposedly shrunk the heads of their enemies to harness their spirit for strength in future battles. Not gonna lie; that exhibit was just a bit eerie. 

Shrunken head in a glass case. It was pretty tiny -- a bit bigger than a softball.

Another shrunken head. Sorry if too graphic!

Out the back door of the museum, we walked through the Archaeological Park, where we saw extensive ruins of buildings believed to be part of the old Incan city of Tomebamba. Unfortunately, the Spanish conquistadors carted off most of the stone to build Cuenca...

The Archaeological Park.

The back side of the Park.

After Museo Pumapongo, we walked to Museo del Sombrero -- the Museum of the Panama Hat. Fun fact: Panama hats are NOT made in Panama...they're made in Ecuador! And so many of them are made in Cuenca. 

Friday afternoon, we found ourselves a chocolate shop, ordered some hot chocolate, and cracked open those homework pages. Later, we walked to a Spanish restaurant for dinner, then walked back to our hotel and packed up our things. 

Have hot chocolate. Will study.

Saturday was an early morning; we needed to leave our hotel about 7am to get to the Cuenca airport. We were keeping all fingers and toes crossed that our flight from Cuenca back to Quito would be on, as we had heard that 100+ Ecuadorian flights had been cancelled just a couple days prior -- pilots and airline staff out with COVID. A quick check of the LatAm app assured us that our flight was a go.

Even though breakfast at La Posada del Angel didn't open until 7:30am, the wonderful woman who checked us out offered to serve us. We had a quiet and quick breakfast about 6:45am, before flagging down a taxi at 7. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the airport -- 3 gates total. In the security line, we didn't have to take off our shoes or worry about liquids of a certain size. I also had nail scissors in my bag; I was allowed to take them in my carry-on. Soon, we boarded our plane, and took off for Quito once again.

Bags, check. Two small water bottles, check.

It's almost time to fly!

We loved our time in Cuenca; we loved walking up and down super old streets and looking at the beautiful architecture. We loved a chill couple of days -- our last visit to the Ecuadorian highlands on this trip.