Even though
we love our life here at the beach, every now and again we love to visit the
mountains. In our case, we love visiting Cuenca. When we first arrived in
Ecuador in the fall of 2011, we spent three months living in this wonderful
town. It is a beautiful world heritage city, clean, full of great restaurants,
parks, museums, concerts, artisans’ and farmers’ markets. You will never get
bored there.
So for a
four day weekend in November, we made arrangements to visit our friends there.
We met Cody and Michael originally from Denver during the fall of 2011 and
quickly became good friends. As well, Donna and Larry originally from Texas
became our friends when we spent February of 2013 in Cuenca on a home exchange.
They lived down the hall from us at that time. Both couples had visited us in
Salinas so now it was our turn to visit them.
Our good
friend Eddie picked us up on Friday morning and away we went. Per usual the
drive to Guayaquil was pretty boring, two and a half hours of 4 lane road
through mostly scrub desert with some irrigated farmland. It has been a long
dry season and this landscape was pretty gray. Closer to Guayaquil, it gets
greener with more farms, villages and prettier scenery. And then the drive
through Guayaquil itself- not for the faint of heart- LOL
From Guayaquil
to Cuenca the scenery gets much more interesting. For the first hour we drove
through what I call the bread basket of Ecuador. Farm after farm of mangos,
sugar cane, cacao, rice, bananas etc. plus many many roadside stands selling
all this and more wonderful fruit.
At the foot
of the Cajas ( the Ecuador branch of the Andes mountain range) we stopped for
lunch at Pio Pio, a chicken fast food place that also has a variety store and
gas station and then onwards up to an elevation of 4100 meters. More on this
later during our sunny drive home.
We arrived
in Cuenca midafternoon at Donna and
Larry’s condo- our first stop. They live on the 16th floor and have
an incredible view over the city.
Many
hummingbirds visit their flowers and feeder.
During the day, the weather in Cuenca is
really not any colder than on the beach in June to November. It is mostly sunny
during the day and maybe rain or thunder showers in the late afternoon and
evening. I wear the same clothes as I do in Salinas but do bring a pair of
jeans for evenings.
For dinner
that night, Donna cooked ribs and Michael and Cody came over and cooked
stir-fried veggies.
Plus Larry made us tasty? Margaritas- what a
guy!
Great food
and great conversations for these six good friends.
The next
morning, the four of us took one of the many local buses to an Artisans’ market
closer to downtown. I love the many markets in Cuenca and had been to this one
before. There was so much stuff for sale- wooden kitchen utensils ( rolling pins,
spoons, pestle & mortar), decorations, furniture, woven purses, pots &
pans, Christmas decorations – you name it, it was available.
I had bought many plants back in Salinas for
my condo- my new indoor garden with the additional 15’ of hallway we had gained
after our renovation. However, finding ceramic pots to plant these in at a
reasonable price was impossible in Salinas. In this market, there was stall
after stall of beautiful pots! I could
hardly make up my mind which to buy, so many pretty (and
cheap $3 to $5 for large ceramic pots) to buy. I finally decided on 5 pots and
bottoms plus a metal holder for elevation for 2 pots. These hardly all fit into
the taxi we took back to the condo but I was delighted with our purchases.
That
afternoon, Uwe and I took a walk to what we had read was a new Brew Pub in
Cuenca. Those of you who are regular readers of my Blog know how much Uwe loves
Brew Pubs and how few we have ever gone to in Ecuador. Most that we had read or
heard about were either closed when we got there or had ceased to exist. We set
off with high hopes!
We took a
short walk down Grand Colombia past the circle at Las Americas and just past
the intersection of Calle Unidas to the next street where our friends had told
us it was. As we turned up this street, lo and behold, we saw the brew pub sign
Aedean Brewery- whoohoo!
As we
approached the door we saw the sign listing the hours. Yee gads, not again!
Here it was shortly after noon and the brew pub did not open until 4PM. Foiled
again! We couldn’t wait until then as the six of us were meeting that evening
for dinner. Our luck with brew pubs was holding out per usual. Damm!
Our plan
that evening was to meet at a Thai restaurant on Calle Larga. Since there are
no Thai restaurants in Salinas, we were really looking forward to this. Larry,
Donna, Uwe & I took a taxi (the afternoon rains
had come) to meet Cody and Michael at the restaurant. Our luck
continues because when we got there, the place was closed. Seemingly it was
only open Monday to Friday- amazing, closed on a Saturday night. After a short
walk down the street, we arrived at Todos Santos, a new
restaurant that both couples had read about. This place was owned by the nuns
and was located in the Todos Santos monastery
in the basement of the old church. The place was beautiful, stone
staircases leading down to a beautiful dining room with large windows
overlooking the river. What a find.
We all had
an delicious dinner, many of us ordering the chef’s suggestions ( he spoke
perfect English) accompanied by some excellent wine.
The next
morning, we packed our suitcase and walked a few blocks down the street to
change locations and spend that day and night at Cody and Michael’s condo.
Their condo was also very beautiful with two lovely terraces and lots of
plants.
For lunch
that day, the six of us drove several kilometers south of Cuenca through the
beautiful countryside to a Mexican restaurant El Agave at kilometer 18.5. The
scenery along the way was awesome- dairy farms, hillsides and happy cows.
Eating our
Mexican lunch accompanied, of course, with cervazas.
The rest of
the day and evening was dedicated to eating, drinking and football back at Cody
and Michael’s to the delight of our men with two of their favorite teams
winning- yea Cardinals- and one ( poor Michael’s) losing in overtime.
Eddie picked
us up early Monday morning for our long drive home. It was a beautiful sunny
day and we were looking forward to a scenic drive through the Cajas.
The road
leaving Cuenca heading home
Some of the
pretty scenery- looks a bit like Switzerland
Going
through the mountains
