More Cuenca

Cafecito - typical interior courtyard cafe

Street side vendor selling Rose plants

Ecuadorian lunch wagon (notice stove pipe vent in roof)

Catheral Doors

"Drug Store" in old town

Walk around Cuenca

We walked around outside the old town into other neighborhoods and these are some of the highlights along the way.

Promanade to the river in front of our hostal

View from the Old City looking over newer area

The other river in Cuenca, Rio Yanuncay

Lady walking her cows through the city park

Eat your hearts out!!

Life in Cuenca

Laundry day in front of our hostal

Ladies roasting cuy (guinea pig) at the market

Indigenas woman taking pineapples to market

Grey styling at the Hat factory

(panama hats are not made in Panama, they are made in Cuenca)

Cuenca

Hola from Cuenca! We have been without WiFi access for several days so haven't been able to post but have been enjoying the sights of Cuenca since Thursday. Unfortunately, our 10 hour bus ride from Quito was at night so we missed out on the scenery coming throught the "Avenue of the Volcano's," but were rewarded upon our arrival with the colonial jewel of the south. Our hostal sits on the bank of the Rio Tomebamba and is only acouple blocks from the cental plaza. Our room is on the top story of the hostal as shown in the first photo. Cuenca is a city of 417,000 friendly people but it surely doesn't seem that big as it is a rather sprawling metropolis. Cobblestone streets, handsome colonial buildings, domed churches make this seem like a more european than latin american city. The photos speak for themselves. Photos in order are: our hostal, cathedral, street scene, museum and courthouse.

More Old Town Quito

A few more photos of our time in Quito. The first is San Franciso Square, the Cathedral, the Monestary (still in use) and it's garden. Also a view of the cathedral roofs from the square.

Old Town Quito

Guess who? This was taken on a hill at the southern edge of old town know as El Panecillo (the little bread loaf) where the "Virgin of Quito" (100 ft high) stands. The houses on the hills above old town cling to the steep terrain and are a good example of residential areas surrounding the city. Old town casts a small footprint in a sprawling city of 2 million. The street photo is typical of old town. These adorable "street urchins" approached us in the square and wanted to shine our shoes. When we said no thank you they asked us for "money for lunch" in english. They were so irresistable I started to get some change out of my purse, big mistake! Immediately I could see half a dozen other children around the square start walking towards us. So I walked away and tried to discretely get some change out. The girl followed & I gave her a quarter and walked on toward the church. The little boy came running after me and asked for more money for himself. I toughened up and walked into the church. There are people on the streets everywhere you go trying to sell you gum, candy or nuts. They even come up to the car windows when your are in a taxi stopped at a light. There is a tremendous amount of poverty here and people try to make a buck any way they can. Needless to say, we will be glad to leave the big city behind! We are heading south to Cuenca tonight on a bus. It leaves Quito at 10:00 PM and arrives in Cuenca at 7:30 AM, nine long hours. We are disappointed to be traveling at night because we will miss all the scenery along the way. We can't complain about the cost, $9 each. I'm sure you will be hearing about the trip in a later blog.

More Plaza de Ponchos

These are more photos taken at the Saturday market. We forgot to mention that the market is in Otavalo. It's hard to see (try clicking on image to enlarge), but in the 3rd photo the dark stuff in the boxes are blueberries and blackberries. Everything is so cheap, avacado's 5/$1, large pineapples 2/$1. Can't wait to have a kitchen so we can do our own cooking! But don't think we'll be buying our chicken at the open market. Back to the last post with the photo of the pigs head, Grey wanted to try it but I discouraged him. Everything looks so yummy but you really have to be careful what and where you eat. We've been lucky so far!

Plaza de Ponchos

Plaza de Panchos is a world renowned indigenas market devoted to a mind boggling array of clothing, craft work, musical instruments, ceramics, souveniers and food. It's most famous though for its weavings hanging in a dizzying labyrinth of color. The sites, sounds and aromas are complex and intoxicating. The central market area overflows on Saturday's into the surrounding streets for blocks with central area of town confined to pedistrian traffic. We spent hours wandering through the maze of stalls and actually didn't buy anything. Not that we didn't see many things we would love to have, we just didn't want to add anything to our already excessive baggage. Plus it was a wonderful place to "people watch." We have so many pictures it's hard to pick just a few but here goes. The blog now has a feature to post a slide show but we have to figure that out and hopefully that will allow us to post more photos per post.

Sights around Cotacachi

A few more photos from our stay in Cotacachi.
The 1st is el Meson de las Flores, where we had breakfast every morning and also the first place that has served "real" coffee. It's been instant nescafe every other place, ugh!
2nd is the town of Otavalo in the background (pop. 45,000) and Cotacachi in the forground.
3rd is the village of Cotacachi.
4th is taken from the roof of our hostel of the neighbor fixing his roof.
Last is also taken from our hostel roof. It is the 4th story roof deck of the adjacent house, the dog run. These poor guys will probably never smell grass but they sure are cute!

More hiking pics

These are few more pics from our hike around the lake.

Click on the photos to enlarge and you will get a much better feel of the terrain.