Cuenca

We arrived in Cuenca from Riobamba on Saturday and took a taxi from the bus station to Hotel Milan, near downtown. We got a great room overlooking a square and opposite a pretty church, and we even had a small balcony. The room was large and clean. It was a good place to hang out while we were still feeling ill from the malarone and/or the jungle food.

The first few days in the city we didn't do a whole lot as Aaron's stomach didn't allow for much travel. Hilary did find the only place in town that sold unsweetened yogurt after an hour of searching. After a couple of days eating yogurt, fruit, and bread, we both felt well enough to start wandering around town. Cuenca is great!

The city seems more affluent than others we have visited. There are bona fide suburbs with big houses, although in true Ecuadorian fashion these are walled and many have electric fences above the walls instead of the typical broken bottles. Downtown is full of people, with tons of restaurants and shopping. Some of the shops are quite high-end. The streets are on the whole cleaner than other cities, and the bank guards more armed. [Our favorite was the shotgun-toting guy outside Western Union. We didn't think it wise to take a picture.] There are an inordinate number of bakeries and ice cream shops; the travel guides say that Cuenca has a collective sweet tooth and that seems to be true. The quality of the baked goods is higher here (at least in the American sense) and the ice cream is richer too. Cuenca seems to be Ecuador's land of yummy food (which is nice since we're a little bummed to be missing the coast).

We got pretty good fried rice (which seems ubiquitous in Cuenca even outside the "Chifa" restaurants) the first night from the hotel restaurant, but after that ventured out more. Our first try was a place on one of the larger squares where we got sub-par lasagna but also a really good tamale and an awesome shrimp-stuffed avocado thing. The next day we walked around the river and found several "Arabic" restaurants; here Arabic mostly means Indian food and shawarma [kind of like a gyro] paired with flavored tobacco hookahs. We picked Taj Mahal since it was the largest, airiest, and least smoky and the internet told us it was the best one in town. It was a total downer, we feel terribly sorry for the people of Cuenca if that is the best Indian curry they can get.  To cheer ourselves up we picked up an apple strudel to go from Cafe Austria a few blocks away. Excellent! (Cuenca has been redeemed).

The next day we had to move hotels. It's a holiday week: All Saint's Day (Nov 1), Day of the Dead (Nov 2), and to top it all off Cuenca Independence Day (Nov 3). We didn't realize early enough and Hotel Milan was booked starting the 2nd. We called around but didn't find anything, then started walking around and asking. We finally got a hit at Gran Hotel, which was finishing a remodel and didn't seem to have anything booked in advance. Lucky us! Too bad they required a longer stay over the holiday (3 nights) and the holiday prices are higher. We moved our stuff on the 1st.

After a little break, we headed down to the big museum by the Banco Central. The info we had said it would be $3 but it was free (maybe for the holiday?). The main exhibits were excavated pottery and metalwork from Tomebamba (the Inca city; it was destroyed shortly before the Spanish founded Cuenca); local artwork and dress from all the regions of Ecuador, arranged geographically; and the tsantsas. A tsantsa is a shrunken head. There was a big section all about the Shuar indigenous group and the culture surrounding the taking and shrinking of heads. There was one sloth head (used for practice in coming-of-age ceremonies) and five human ones. Pretty neat.

After the museum we walked through the craft fair set up for the holiday. We picked up a couple blankets which are supposedly made of alpaca. We have our doubts, but they are still pretty. We also got a gorgeous hand-woven table cloth (which Hilary says we are going to hang on the wall, as it is too pretty for food to fall on it).  We'll use the two brightly colored and beautifully patterned runners on tables, though. For dinner we went to a place on Calle Larga that advertised 30-cm burritos for $5. The food was really good; we even had a couple cocktails (living on the edge).

The 2nd was the big parade day. We, of course, didn't really know this but we started wandering around in the morning and followed the giant mob to the main square. Everyone was lining up along the street, which was closed to traffic. We figured it must be a parade. We were right, but it didn't start for an hour and a half after we got there (and the place was packed at 10:30). We did do a lot of great people watching, popcorn eating, and we even got some frozen yogurt. The parade did eventually start and it was mostly Cuenca-themed with floats from the various neighborhoods and schools. It was a lot like the 4th of July parades in Wisconsin, complete with floats handing out food and spraying milk at the crowds. We stayed for awhile until we got a little too scorched by the sun.

On our way back to the hotel we did pick up a traditional guagua de pan: bread shaped like a little baby. Apparently it's a Day of the Dead thing? We didn't get any colada morada (a warm fruit drink) since we had tried that a few days earlier and weren't all that excited, though it is a traditional accompaniment to the kid-bread since it looks like a cup of blood. After hiding from the sun for the afternoon we went back for more burritos. After that we stopped at Cafe Austria and confused the staff by ordering warm milk and liqueur along with more strudel. They asked how our experimental drinks were; we told them it's totally normal in the US. Maybe they'll add it to the menu?

Today we walked over to the second half of the craft fair: paint and jewelry. The other day it was barely set up so we figured we'd just walk through briefly today. Oops. Hilary found things she liked in the local metalwork style including a bracelet and three necklaces. She had to be pushed out of the fair after that (much to the amusement of the craftsmen at the last table). We walked back along Calle Larga to Coffee Tree, where we had stopped one morning for tea/coffee and cake. Today we got more tea and some really good kabobs. Coffee Tree turns out to be the Gringo Black Hole of Cuenca. People walked by on the street and all the gringos got sucked in. There are also some expats that seem to hang out there a lot, and the music selection is mostly contemporary US stuff (in English). They even have live music nightly...in English. The food is good and they do make the tea correctly (hot enough water) and they have espresso! Their cappuccino is more like a latte, but hey we're ok with that. After our lunch we crossed the street to another museum set in a really cool old house. There were paintings from the 17th-19th centuries, and they were just hanging there on the walls. Only one had a glass pane in front. Crazy! Upstairs was a traveling black and white photo exhibit by Ecuadorian artists.

Tonight is our last in Cuenca, which is probably good. The hotel we have seems to be populated by a motley crew of folks who didn't book far enough ahead (like us): drunk party-goers, families with small children, and an entire Chilean girl's high school basketball team. They take up the whole breakfast space. It's a bit louder than advertised here, so we're ready to visit the (supposedly) quiet town of Vilcabamba for a few days tomorrow.