Oct. 31 to Nov.5- Travelling to Cuenca

On Sunday we went for our final visit to Will & Wendy's Score Sport's Bar where we have had the pleasure for the past month of meeting lots of other Expats plus watching NFL football. This Sunday we met Bob & Barbara- nicknamed the Killer B's by their friends. They used to live in Casa Grande, Arizona just a few miles south of where we lived in Chandler, Arizona. And now they live in Progreso, Mexico near Merida which is also on our 'Year of Travel' list. Small World!!!!

Eddy picked us up on Monday to drive us to Guayaquil. We had decided to stay overnight there and rather than take a bus or taxi to Cuenca- a 4 hour drive- we were taking a 40 minute flight on Galapagos Airlines instead.
After checking in to the hotel, we took another long walk along the Malecon.

Most of the Malecon was very busy with costumed children- it was Oct.31- Halloween, so we tried to stay away from the crowds and explored  the far end.

Next morning we took a taxi to the National Airport in what we thought was lots of time- wrong! It was the big holiday week throughout Ecuador and we ended up in a gigantic line-up with many many Ecuadorians returning home from the USA.

And even worse, after we finally got through check-in and security,  our flight was delayed for 2 hours.

Once in Cuenca, our luggage was the last to arrive on the baggage claim. We were met by Svein, a transplant from Norway, who took us to our apartment that again we had rented through the internet- our fingers were crossed!

Our kitchen and dining room

Our living room

View out our balcony

All in all, we were pretty pleased this time, much better than our Salina's apartment. So this will be our home for the next three months.

The next day, which was the start of the holiday week and festivities, we took a walk to Centro- the old part of downtown Cuenca. It is full of incredibly beautiful old buildings- Cuenca was designated a World Heritage City in 1999 and has some amazing architecture.

We also enjoyed watching the many festival activities- food.

Many bands entertaining

And many stalls set up selling food, flowers, leather goods etc

We also spent some time in Parque Abdon Calderon, a beautiful green park in the center of old town with many benches and huge old trees donated by Chile more than 100 years ago.

A truly wonderful place

The next day we took a walk along the Rio Tomebamba, one of three rivers that flow through Cuenca. This one was only a short walk from our apartment and we could follow it all the way to downtown.

Very scenic and tranquil- in the middle of the city. Cuenca has a population of approximately 600,000 so it is fairly large compared to Salinas which only has 50,000.

More river pictures- we walked for a couple of hours.

Near downtown we found a large craft fair- many many stalls of purses, blouses, colorful material and original paintings.

Many native women selling colourful scraves & fabrics

Wish we had somewhere to put some of this artwork!

When we arrived back home we were beat! This high altitude- Cuenca sits at 8000'- is pretty tiring when you are not used to it.

So what are our first impressions based on 4 days of exploring? Cuenca is very clean, no garbage in the streets, no stray dogs and very few beggars- only saw 2 very old ladies- so sad, while I'm enjoying my retirement, they are reduced to begging!

On the downside, prices in the grocery store- SuperMaxi- are slightly higher than Salinas but we still have to check out the very large mercado ( market) before we jump to conclusions.  Tune back in next week for further explorations!