We arrived in Cuenca after a gruelling 7+ hour journey. Unlikely to be the longest we take on our trip, but the longest to date and our first real taste of the high winding Andean roads. Something that is going to prove interesting in due course for someone who has a fear of heights!
The first morning we did, as we had in Quito, and took a guided walking tour of the city. The two we’ve done so far have been a great way to explore and get to understand a bit more about the city we’re in and the Ecuadorian culture.
Cuenca is touted as having a more European vibe (courtesy of the Spanish mostly) and indeed it proved to be. Whilst there are still the markets selling all sorts, complete with the sellers jabbering at everyone who passes, the other areas of the historic centre definitely felt a little less frenzied and somewhat more chilled than a lot of the other places we’ve visited. And we definitely needed that. I think we’re both suffering a little from ‘sensory exhaustion’!
As well as soaking up some culture in the historic centre we took the obligatory visit to the local Mercado to try out some more typical Ecuadorian or Cuencan foods, again finding some real ‘treats’, along with seeing a bit of the local Limpia practise (a kind of spiritual healing, which we weren’t quite brave enough to try)!
For our final day in Cuenca we headed out of the city, getting a bus to Parque National Cajas for a hike.
At just shy of 4,000m we knew that we’d need to take it fairly easy (although I think we’re slowly getting a bit more acclimatised to these altitude). We took a walk around Lake Toreadora with a bit of a detour to enjoy the Polylepis forest, which was really cool.
Cajas Park was stunning in a bleak kind of way (not sure it would be so enjoyable on a miserable day, but thankfully we mostly had sun), although when you looked more closely there were loads of different varieties of plants and lots of beautiful tiny flowers, and the day was just what we needed to rejuvenate us.
Sloth Journeys 