1. The balcony of our enormous room in Cuenca 2. Hats, hats, hats 3. View from our balcony 4. Local market 5. A very damp Mike at Parc Nacional CajasCuenca. A world heritage centre - stunning architecture, cobbled streets a-plenty, flower markets outside gorgeous churches, atmospheric squares, funky bars and restaurants and - most important of all - one of South America's finest cake and ice cream shops. Oh, and they sell hats. The straw ones that most certainly are not from Panama.
Apparently a popular pastime in these parts is to debate the relative beauty of Quito and Cuenca. Cuencans obviously have a hectic schedule of pastimes, because this debate would take all of half a second. The winner is Cuenca.
We checked into a fancy place overlooking Cuenca's principal church. We had a balcony each and floor to ceiling windows framing the church in a room so enormous you could rollerblade around it (oh, for a pair of rollerblades).
We spent a lovely day visiting hat museums and local markets, munching on a plate of roast hog for lunch, and eating enormous ice cream sundaes. We spent a second lovely day visiting three local villages and browsing their bustling Sunday markets, avoiding eating roast guinea pig for lunch, and topping it all off with an enormous ice-cream sundae.
On our very last day of seven months of travel it rained - relentless and varied Andean rain that explains the thick mat of hair covering a llama. Undeterred, we donned layer upon layer, hats, gloves and scarves and headed high into the mountains for a hike in the bleak landscape of Parc Nacional Cajas. A bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we slipped and slithered along steep pathways past hundreds of tiny lakes in the rolling mist, occasionally startling a llama in the undergrowth. Despite the rain it was a stunningly beautiful walk and we returned with rosy cheeks to toast our sodden feet and cradle a milky hot chocolate in front of the fire in the friendly national park guard's office. We made it back to Cuenca just in time for a sizable ice-cream sundae.
And then there it was. The inescapable deadline we'd been trying hard not to acknowledge. The end of our trip.
Apparently a popular pastime in these parts is to debate the relative beauty of Quito and Cuenca. Cuencans obviously have a hectic schedule of pastimes, because this debate would take all of half a second. The winner is Cuenca.
We checked into a fancy place overlooking Cuenca's principal church. We had a balcony each and floor to ceiling windows framing the church in a room so enormous you could rollerblade around it (oh, for a pair of rollerblades).
We spent a lovely day visiting hat museums and local markets, munching on a plate of roast hog for lunch, and eating enormous ice cream sundaes. We spent a second lovely day visiting three local villages and browsing their bustling Sunday markets, avoiding eating roast guinea pig for lunch, and topping it all off with an enormous ice-cream sundae.
On our very last day of seven months of travel it rained - relentless and varied Andean rain that explains the thick mat of hair covering a llama. Undeterred, we donned layer upon layer, hats, gloves and scarves and headed high into the mountains for a hike in the bleak landscape of Parc Nacional Cajas. A bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we slipped and slithered along steep pathways past hundreds of tiny lakes in the rolling mist, occasionally startling a llama in the undergrowth. Despite the rain it was a stunningly beautiful walk and we returned with rosy cheeks to toast our sodden feet and cradle a milky hot chocolate in front of the fire in the friendly national park guard's office. We made it back to Cuenca just in time for a sizable ice-cream sundae.
And then there it was. The inescapable deadline we'd been trying hard not to acknowledge. The end of our trip.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment