Cuenca, Ecuador

Cuenca is a colonial city in south central Ecuador. It has beautiful buildings full of character along the river and an old square with two churches, which is now protected as a UNESCO site. It was a quiet city, with hardly anything going on at night - it was even hard to find a restaurant open (although I was there on a Sunday and Monday). It didn't take much time to tour the historical sites, as the city is very manageable and concentrated.

the new cathedral and the pinnacle blue domes

I was mostly using the city as a stop to be lazy and catch up on all things internet (including a TV break). My plan was to just walk around and enjoy the streets but I ended up seeing a lot more than I thought I would after stumbling upon a double decker tour bus the first afternoon (for $5!). The bus took us to areas I would not have walked to and to a look out area at the edge of the city, which I did not know of. There are even a set of ruins in the city which I could see from the bus.

the view from the lookout point

The tour was really nice, but the information was not in English AND Spanish as promised, so I only picked up on the highlights.

The next morning after a run along the river, I set out for a walk trough town. I visited the main square and went into both the original church and the new church. The new church is really beautiful and ornate. You can go up in the dome for a view of the city. The old church has been turned into a museum. My favorite exhibit was the model that they had of the new church. There was also all the old chapel rooms donated by prominent families in the 1500s. I also visited the town's markets- there is one of clothes that is like a flea market, a cheap jewlery one, a flower market in front of a church and the standard fruit and vegetable market.

the main alter at the new church

the main alter at the old church

the model for the new church

the cathedral of the old church

flower market

Food was cheap! I had lunch at a somewhat touristy place in the main square, Cafe Sucre, and got the menu del dia for $3.50 and it had a soup, main beef course, cake for desert and a juice. I ate other meals at the hotel because it had a lively and well known cafe, and was affordable.

After lunch I went to two museums. They were both small. I usually don't like to visit museums but one sounded very unique and then I just had time to spend for the second.

The first was the Museo Prohibido, which is more of an exhibition and lounge space created by the artist Eduardo Moscoso. It was very goth. Interesting but dark and not exactly my style.

The second was a museum of ancient artifacts from all over Ecuador. There was mostly pottery, but also jewelry, idols, weapons and fish hooks. It's funny to see fishing hooks from hundreds of years ago that are the same as we use now - if it's not broke don't fix it. They also had tweezers!!

Cuenca was a nice stop over and a lovely city. It's a a nice place to walk around. I had heard so much about the city from a magazine about living abroad my dad subscribes to, so it nice to see it in person. It wasn't as close to my next city as I thought - I had almost 9 hours of buses the next day. And Ecuadorian buses are not nice or comfortable.