Jan.9 to 14- Week 11 in Cuenca

In and around Cuenca there are many food and artesan type mercados/farmers' markets/ craft stalls. We had passed by one in town while taking a bus one day and were anxious to visit it again. After checking our Cuenca map- available at the tourist info places and very well laid out showing all kinds of places of interest including mercados- we figured out where it was and decided it was a manageable walk.

I believe that I did mention, maybe more than once, that we are walking one to three hours almost every day.

It took us a little over an hour to get there and since it was the weekend, lots of other people had the same idea.
                                           Here is the plaza just  before.

And then many many stalls of merchandise

Lots of wooden stuff- bowls, utensals, mortar & pestle, knitted scarves, purses,ceramics

We had a great time exploring- and buying- all the interesting stuff for sale

Even several stalls selling hand made furniture

After several purchases we walked back home and saw this llama ready to give rides

At a large intersection close to our apartment, a large construction project started approximately one week ago. This intersection was a large round about/ traffic circle and was a crossroad of roads leading out of the city. Huge traffic tie ups were always happening. So the government decided to make one road tunnel under the other- a supposedly 9 month project completed in November.

The sign describing the project

Lots of big machinery- this was the start

After only 1 week the holes are more than 3 stories deep

In spite of this great progress, none of the Cuencanos we have talked to actually believe that completion will be in 9 months. The last traffic circle to tunnel conversion took 18 months!