Ecuador, Cuenca

We chose to take a bus back to Quito, rather than risk the possibility of a repeat nightmare taxi drive, then boarded a flight to Cuenca. Again, another city but smaller than Quito, which in recent years, attracted 3500 expatriates. During our 5 day stay (this time we were renting a room in a young couples home, she was Ecadorian and he, Canadian). We had ample opportunity to speak with several expats who were more thanwilling to share their stories and reasons for relocating to this much gentler city with it's 4 rivers flowing through it, and grassy pathway alongside. And here were some of those reasons:

The mountains
The rivers
The people
The culture
The architecture
Sunshine
Cost of living
Parks
Cafes
Critters (lack of)

To give a little history.... Cuenca means 'River Basin' and has an elevation of 8500 ft. The Incas conquered Cuenca in the late 1400's, prior to that the Canari' had been living here since 500 AD. There is an abundance of museums, so we chose best part of a day to explore the most famous ... 'Museum del Banco Central' which had been constructed over what was previously, an Inca Palace. Attached was an archaeological site along with some lovely Botanical Gardens.

This museum has re-creations of typical dwellings from the various regions of Ecuador and a section devoted to the chronicles of the country's currency. Along with the history of the Incas, there were several real, shrunken heads. It was interesting to note that the "white man" was not thought worthy of having their heads shrunk!



We also wandered around The Panama Hat factory .... because, as we all know, Panama Hats come from Ecuador NOT Panama. We were quite tempted to purchase a couple, but discovered the most popular hats that the tourists prefer, sell here for $25, and are categorized as being only a grade 1 ... when in actual fact, a truly decent hat (a grade 20) sells for several thousand dollars and can be more easily purchased online.


We enjoyed our usual bus tour around Cuenca, but despite this we found that we walked 30 miles over our 4 days, enjoyed decent cups of coffee, good quality, tasty, inexpensive food. Saw local indians washing their laundry in the rivers (interestingly, in many cases it is the men who actually wash the clothes, while the women supervise) It is evident that a high priority is to have clean shoes, and there are shoeshinners set up everywhere, one even tried to persuade Ron to have his Keen walking sandals cleaned, Traffic still has the right of way here, and crosswalks are totally disregarded, if anything the drivers speed up if they see you using them! It definitely felt a much safer city despite there always being a guard with a sawn off shotgun standing outside every bank.