Cuenca City of Light and Rain
October 11, 2005 Hotel St. Lucia, Cuenca Ecuador
I sit in the courtyard of a beautiful 17 century Spanish mansion about a block from the Cathedral in Cuenca. We enrolled at the Simon Bolivar Language School and begin our two week course tomorrow. Cuenca has a 300,000 population and sits at about 2,500 meters (7,500 ft.). The Centro is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the plethora of Colonial era churches. The Ecuadorian consider it their most beautiful city.
You can drink the water, eat the salads and enjoy international cuisine. The professional men in our hood dress better than any lawyer in Oregon City, even Jeff Munns. We will be here for about 12 more days and I hope the rain stops. It is typical mountain June weather: unpredictable and variable.
Yesterday was a long and amusing day. Tumbes was not a gringo town. In fact, I have not seen an American or heard English spoken (unless solicited by us) in two days. Tumbes was a garrison town on the Ecuador-Peru border. There is only one flight a day into the desolate airport. Everything is grey, but the people were great. We ate in a small restaurant for $3 and had a big bowl of soup, egg and mata tea (Gays stomach does better with the leaf of the coca helping).
Our odyssey north began with a taxi ride to the border with two an expediter and his young driver who managed to get lost on a back street which made Tijuana in the 60s look like the entry to the Vatican Gardens. The teaming masses line the border selling and trading. We needed to walk across the border with our guide to a bus station with a bus going to Cuenca. Pigs, chickens and refuse marked our path. My sandals seemed like inappropriate attire. As Gay said, "Chuck, just how many West Linn wives would do this on their vacation?" Well, Leona Greeen might enjoy this after a few drinks I thought, (but did not utter a word). I was a little perplexed, but as fate would have it another bus awaited which we thought would whisk us to Cuenca.
We traveled through the coastal plains, banana plantations, and up into the Alta Plano (the high mountain area). The skys cleared and we passed small Alp like farms. We listened to six hours of Ecuadorian Rap, which all sounds the same to me and enjoyed the ride. Then the inside bus tire exploded, the jack did not work, and after about an hour another bust arrived to take us the Cuenca in a driving rainstorm.
Remarkably, we enjoyed the day and decided to check into about the best accommodation in Cuenca to celebrate our survival. Getting to just meet people, see the country and keep a good attitude are worth the effort for me.
The spell checker is in Espanola so bear with this draft....Wish most of my friends were here.
I sit in the courtyard of a beautiful 17 century Spanish mansion about a block from the Cathedral in Cuenca. We enrolled at the Simon Bolivar Language School and begin our two week course tomorrow. Cuenca has a 300,000 population and sits at about 2,500 meters (7,500 ft.). The Centro is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the plethora of Colonial era churches. The Ecuadorian consider it their most beautiful city.
You can drink the water, eat the salads and enjoy international cuisine. The professional men in our hood dress better than any lawyer in Oregon City, even Jeff Munns. We will be here for about 12 more days and I hope the rain stops. It is typical mountain June weather: unpredictable and variable.
Yesterday was a long and amusing day. Tumbes was not a gringo town. In fact, I have not seen an American or heard English spoken (unless solicited by us) in two days. Tumbes was a garrison town on the Ecuador-Peru border. There is only one flight a day into the desolate airport. Everything is grey, but the people were great. We ate in a small restaurant for $3 and had a big bowl of soup, egg and mata tea (Gays stomach does better with the leaf of the coca helping).
Our odyssey north began with a taxi ride to the border with two an expediter and his young driver who managed to get lost on a back street which made Tijuana in the 60s look like the entry to the Vatican Gardens. The teaming masses line the border selling and trading. We needed to walk across the border with our guide to a bus station with a bus going to Cuenca. Pigs, chickens and refuse marked our path. My sandals seemed like inappropriate attire. As Gay said, "Chuck, just how many West Linn wives would do this on their vacation?" Well, Leona Greeen might enjoy this after a few drinks I thought, (but did not utter a word). I was a little perplexed, but as fate would have it another bus awaited which we thought would whisk us to Cuenca.
We traveled through the coastal plains, banana plantations, and up into the Alta Plano (the high mountain area). The skys cleared and we passed small Alp like farms. We listened to six hours of Ecuadorian Rap, which all sounds the same to me and enjoyed the ride. Then the inside bus tire exploded, the jack did not work, and after about an hour another bust arrived to take us the Cuenca in a driving rainstorm.
Remarkably, we enjoyed the day and decided to check into about the best accommodation in Cuenca to celebrate our survival. Getting to just meet people, see the country and keep a good attitude are worth the effort for me.
The spell checker is in Espanola so bear with this draft....Wish most of my friends were here.
posted by Chuck and Gay Mitchell | 4:07 PM
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