Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Jan.15-21- Week 12 in Cuenca

We had a farewell dinner with a few of our friends. Uwe and I are returning to Salinas at month end, Fred and Shirley are travelling on to Argentina and Michael was going home to Denver. Only Cody was staying.We had a wonderful time and many vinos at the California Kitchen. Until next year, my friends!!!

On Tuesday we hired Angel again to take us to yet another scenic place outside Cuenca. This time we travelled south towards Loja & Machala for those of you who are following our trip on Google Earth. We took the turnoff towards Machala and went as far as the town of Giron.
This is a view of the town from the road leading up to the waterfall at El Chorro.

Once we got to the parking lot, a well-defined if very muddy path lead up to the Falls.

Please wear rain gear if you get a chance to visit. Even though there was no rain when we went up, the mist from the fall got me totally soaked. As well, wear proper hiking shoes- I wore my hiking sandals and returned with very wet, muddy feet.
Our first view of the Waterfall

Absolutely beautiful. Like a fairy land or like Avitar according to my Facebook friends.


And a very wet & muddy me with Angel returning to his car.

We went on further to the mountain village of Santa Isabel past more wonderful scenery which I had every intention of photographing on our way home- NOT!
While we were having a nice almuerzo lunch- $7.50 for 3 of us- the sky opened up and it rained until we returned to Cuenca.

Later in the week we finally went to Parque de El Paraiso- a huge urban park in Cuenca. We took a bus part way and walked approximately 45 minutes- we wanted to save our strength for actually exploring the park.
While in the park you can't even tell that you are still in the city.

It was huge and very green

And a large section had all these wooden pathways

And finally a picture of Uwe- I'm sure I've mentioned how much he likes to be photographed.


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