We had time off the week before Carnival and I headed to Cuenca. It is in the Southern Andes about 50 minutes by airplane. It is full of 16th and 17th century architecture and red tiled roofs.
It is also known for the rivers that run through it.
let's pretend my finger isn't in this picture
I stayed in a lovely hotel in the old city center called Hotel Los Balcones. It was quaint with a clean room, good services and a nice daily breakfast on the terrace.
The food in Cuenca was really good. A Pedir de boca was a nice restaurant with asian inspired dishes. I had my first really spicy meal since I moved to Ecuador. I had a noodle dish it was pretty tasty. Next time I'd get rice noodles though.
spicy noodles
Sofy GLocal was a lovely restaurant inside the inner courtyard of an old building. The walls had art by local artists and lots of plants. The food was really good. I went back twice.
smoked trout, capers, and cream cheese open faced sandwhich
olive and anchovy tapenade on toast served on a hot stone
seabass encocado
By far my favorite meal was at El Mercado. It was a really upscale dining experience at really good prices.
grilled octopus
slow cooked pork shoulder on cauliflower puree
Los Tiestos was a family style restaurant that had dishes served in clay dishes (cazuelas). Dinner started with about 10 different tapenades and bread. It was a really lovely dinner.
I arrived on Sunday and after a short nap and lunch I went on a bus tour of the city. For only $8 it was a nice way to learn about the city and see how the city was laid out. According to the tour there are enough churches to go to a different one every Sunday in a year.
It was really warm and the sun was strong.
The next day I took a tour to Gualaceo and the jewelry town of Chordeleg. It was a small tour (just 3 of us). We stopped first at a Guitar makers shop outside of San Bartolome above the Valle de Santa Barbara. His guitars were beautiful. I wish I played.
He showed us how they make the inlay.
This cuatro is made out of an armadillo. Supposedly they find dead animals to make the instruments.
Then on to Chordeleg where at one time artisans made jewelry out of silver and gold mined in Ecuador. It is not just a plaza filled with jewelry stores. I enjoyed the window shopping and the church in the town square.
Then we headed to Gualaceo and enjoyed a meal of roasted pig. It was so good.
We decided to stop at Ecuagenera to see their orchids and learn about how they hybridize and propagate orchids.
We left Nasca on June 17 on an overnight bus to Arequipa. It sucked. We were seated in the back of the bus. It was smelly, hot, and uncomfortable. I woke up multiple times with claustrophobia because my legs were trapped by the reclining seats in front of us. It was horrible. We arrived in Arequipa around 5 in the morning. We elected to stay at the Casa de Avila, but we were leaving that morning for a 2 day tour of Colca canyon. The hotel was a converted colonial mansion. They were so very kind and the allowed us to store our bags and to rest in one of the common rooms until breakfast. We then were picked up for our trip to Colca canyon. The road to Colca Canyon Wild vicuña on the side of the road The trip out of Arequipa took about an hour because of traffic. We then began our climb. The drive took us up past 15,000 feet elevation. We stopped at the highest point to see the volcanos, stacked rocks, and domestic Llamas and Alpacas. We arrived in Chivay in time for lunch. T...
We had a 3 day weekend and it was my first chance to really get out of Quito and visit parts of Ecuador. I rented a car because of my friends I’m the only one who could drive a stick shift (thanks mom and dad!). Quick aside - I was so glad that I had had the opportunity to drive a couple of different types of stick shift cars. When I rented the car the company showed me how to/where to put gas, open the trunk, use the radio, etc. The one thing the didn’t show me was how to put the car in reverse. I’ve driven cars where reverse is on the far right. I’ve driven cars where it was on the left, where you had to push a button to put the car in reverse. I got the car home to my parking garage and I realised I had no idea how to put the Chevy Aveo into reverse. I spent 20 min trying to get the care in reverse, slowly inching towards a wall. I finally remembered I had the power of Google on my phone. Thank you Google for showing me where the tiny ring was that I had to pull up on wh...
Puno We arrived in Puno and got settled in at our Hostel. It was another very basic place. Puno is a small town that doesn't have a lot of tourism. We spent the day wandering a bit in the plaza and visiting the church. There was a festival and a lot of places were closed. That afternoon we took our tour of the floating islands in Lake Titicaca. It was very cold on the lake. We took a boat about 30 minutes out to the islands. They are a series of islands that are grouped together. The tours take turns going to different islands and the people pool their money to support the community. When we arrived we were taken to an area to sit on the reeds and a local spokes person gave us information on their life and the islands. He showed us how they layer the reeds on top of the root blocks to make the island (approx 3 feet thick). We learned that they need refreshing regularly. We learned that traditionally the reeds are edible and combined with fishing this was the main sustenance. Now...
Finally we stopped at Ikat Gualaceo to visit artisans who dye and weave beautiful shawls by hand. The dyes are all natural.
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