Cuenca, city of spires

Cuenca is the biggest town in the southern half of the country. We flew 30 minutes (barely) from Quito to Cuenca, a trip that takes 12 hours on the bus. The flight was AMAZING!!! All the major volcanoes passed by my window - talk about having a good seat. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera. Grr! For once, it was an evening free of clouds, and the sun was just setting to the west ... I'm telling you, it was God-inspiring!

The town of Cuenca itself is really colonial, and I'm not kidding when I say there were churches around every corner. Most had really ornate doors, and the most famous church had doors that dwarfed any human being. Being a weekend, we did get to hear bells and chimes more than once, particularly at 6:30 in the morning, which wasn't our favorite time of day.


This is called "broken bridge" because if you look closely, you can see it doesn't actually cross the river but kind of ends. More like a pier.

Being the weekend, we also got to visit more than one market, which was fun. Here's a typical fruit and veggie market in a small town outside of Cuenca. I love it because you can see how many of the women actually wear the traditional Ecuadorian dress and hat on any given day. I really wanted to also post the picture of the entire roasted pig we saw at this market, but sadly the picture didn't really turn out.

Below you see us eating an early breakfast while we wait for our bus to the Incan ruins. From left to right: Serene (Auzzie), Adeline (Brit), Michelle (1/2 German, 1/2 Canadian), and Anne (German).

My first lamas in Ecuador!!!
Going to Ingapirca was probably my favorite thing of the weekend. I thought they were Incan ruins, but it turns out there was both Incan and also pre-Incan (local Canari) ruins. Ingapirca wasn't a great city or anything. It was more of a holy spot, they assume, because the only things really there are a great raised platform (probably for sacrifice), some aqueducts, and a few ceremonial buildings. Oh, and these odd-shaped rocks with holes in them that we dubbed cupholders.

I think the Incans purely wanted to build big rocks in a place where there was a really cool view.

Oh, and this was my 2nd-favorite thing of the weekend. :-) It was yummy. I had "Breakfast Austrian," and gorged myself on salami while sitting under a portrait of Mozart.