After Baños, we headed for Cuenca, Ecuador. The Cuenca Independence Day celebration is November third, so we decided to go for October 31 through November 4 (Wed night -Sun morning). There was no direct bus, so we first had to take a 45 minute bus to Ambato. Like most Ecuadorian buses, this process was very easy. As soon as we got to the Baños bus station, a guy approached us saying "Quito, Quito, Quito", which is the most common destination for travelers from Baños. We said "No, Ambato" and he led us to a bus. We put our bags underneath and within a few minutes we were off. When we got on, the bus was about one third full, but we picked up more people on our way out of town and soon the bus was full. We like to joke that it´s not a real South American bus experience without an armpit in the face.
When we got to Ambato, we told the money collector guy on the bus that we were going to Cuenca, so he dropped us off on the side of the road a ways before the main station (the guy at our hotel had told us this was the way to go). Across the street were a few buses waiting. A guy came up to us saying "Cuenca, Cuenca, Cuenca". We put our bags under the bus and boarded. The bus was packed, but fortunately the very last two seats were open, and they even had room to fully recline! Sitting in front of us was a family with two screaming babies (about 3 and 6), but we were happy to have seats.
The bus to Cuenca was about seven hours, but we didn´t worry about lunch because of the "bus buffet". In Ecuador, people periodically hop on and off the bus, regardless of designated stops. In addition to regular passengers, many of the people are asking for money, performing for money, or (most commonly) selling food or drinks. It´s great because you get to see whatever food they have as they walk down the aisle, then you can think about it, and on their way back up the aisle you can buy it if you want. Different parts of Ecuador tend to have different types of food, but it usually only costs about 50¢ so it´s okay to experiment. After the vendors make their rounds, they hop off the bus wherever they end up. I suspect they then catch a bus in the opposite direction to get back to where they started. Each bus has a money collector who periodically makes sure all of the riders have paid (he must have a great memory because they rarely issue tickets), but they don´t make the people selling stuff/asking for money pay.
After the little girl in front of us had a nap, she was pretty cute. For some reason she found Dan really funny. I´m not sure if it was because of his Panama hat or maybe his big blonde beard, but she kept tugging at her Mom´s shoulder to get her attention and then pointing to Dan and laughing hysterically. This was pretty funny until all of a sudden she threw up all over the floor (maybe she was turned backwards for too long?). Fortunately, at that point we were only about an hour from Cuenca and the money collector guy came back and put some newspaper over it.
Dan´s beard:
Because of the holiday weekend, we made hotel reservations in advance at the Hotel Milan. It was a little strange because they didn´t accept credit cards so they gave us their bank account number and we had to go to a branch in Quito and deposit $60 in their account (all 4 nights cost $80). However, it was good that we did this because when we got there, the hotel was totally booked. Plus, it turned out to be a great hotel with friendly staff, decent hot water, cable TV, great location, and a free water cooler! Even better, we had a balcony overlooking the San Francisco Market with live music from about 10 am to 10 pm (this was especially lucky because some of Cuenca´s celebrations went late into the night). From our balcony we could just barely see the performers on the stage. Unfortunately, most of the performers were Karaoke style (singing over prerecorded tracks). A few of the groups were apparently inspired by the Backstreet Boys or Pussycat Dolls and had matching costumes and choreographed dances. However, dancing skills were generally disproportional to singing skills.
Dan from our balcony at Hotel Milan:
Our first night in Cuenca we went to a restaurant highly recommended by Fodors, called Villarosa Restaurant. It was listed in the lowest price range, but we were surprised to see all the tables laid out with quite elaborate table settings. We were also surprised to see that we were the only ones in the restaurant. We went ahead and ordered two shrimp bisques for appetizers. For the main course, Dan got lamb and I got black conch
ceviche. One of my favorite meals of the trip was the ceviche I had ordered in
Lima, so I was eager to try it again. Soon after we ordered, a large tour group of old English people filled the restaurant. We´ve found that Fodors recommendations are sometimes excellent, but sometimes overrun with old people tour groups.
Although my ceviche in Lima was served as a little pile of seafood pieces, in Ecuador they tend to serve it more like a cold soup, which is not quite as good, but still tasty. However, I was very surprised to see a bowl of thick, black, cold liquid brought out for my meal. Floating in it were totally black pieces of raw shellfish and on the side was a bowl of popcorn and corn kernels. Apparently, black conch refers to the color of the meat, not just the shell. Halfway through the meal the chef came out to see how I liked the black conch. I told her it had a very unusual flavor, so she suggested I put some of the popcorn into the "soup". It helped a little. In the below picture I´m holding a piece of conch on my spoon and floating in the bowl are pieces of popcorn and corn kernels:
A little known fact is that Panama hats actually originated in Ecuador. While in Cuenca, we went to a Panama hat factory. The hats are hand woven outside of the factory, but we got to see them press the hat into the correct shape and apply the finishing touches.
We had left for South America on September 1, and from that day until November 3 Dan stopped shaving. By that point he was looking pretty scruffy, so he decided to go to the barber shop. He told them something like "Quiero tener la barba, pero quiero cortarla un poco" and this is what he ended up with (I think they did a very good job):
One of my favorite things about or visit to Cuenca was the seemingly randomness of all of the Independence day celebrations. We were unable to find any sort of event schedule, but instead, as we wondered around town, we would stumble across various celebrations. Twice we stumbled into parades. The first parade consisted almost entirely of queens of different things (maybe neighborhoods?). Most of the "floats" were decorated trucks with 1-5 young ladies with sashes sitting in the back.
On Friday night we were walking around looking for celebrations when we came across a group of people standing along the edge of a wide stairwell leading down to the river. We were wondering what all the commotion was about when suddenly a bike went racing past us down the stairs. Apparently it was a bike race! Near the bottom of the stairwell was a park with a large bandstand and a huge crowd. The group on stage was performing traditional Ecuadorian music and was very good. Everyone was dancing so Dan and I danced around too, but I think we must have looked pretty out of place because a guy motioned us over and showed us some dance moves. He also introduced us to his entire family, including Grandma. Everyone was very eager to say hello to and dance with the gringos. It was pretty hectic but a lot of fun.
I don´t think Cuenca gets as many tourists as some of the other cities we´ve visited. Many of the locals were clearly amused by telling us¨"hello" as we walked by. At one point an inebriated guy came up to us and in broken English told us that if we ever wanted to speak English with someone, we should talk with him. However, every time we tried to respond, he would just tell us again that we should talk with him because he speaks English. I think that might have been the only phrase he could remember.
Here is some delicous pork we ate:
On Saturday night we came across a comedian performing in a blocked off street. She got lots of laughs, but our Spanish wasn´t good enough to understand her jokes, so we headed back to the bandstand from the previous night. The bandstand was no longer there, but we walked a little further and soon found a small band playing. There was also a bunch of artwork for sale and people doing caricatures. They were packing up their things to leave, but I asked a guy and he said he would do a caricature of us. People kept coming over to watch him draw, and the next thing we knew, we had a larger audience than the band! It is a little funny having someone intently look at you and draw you. To make it funnier, we couldn´t see the drawing, but we could watch the whole crowd of people (maybe 20?) keep looking back and forth from us to the picture and smiling. I couldn´t help but smile the entire time. Here is the resulting picture:
Note that Dan had his beard trimmed before this drawing was done. I think it is very good, but Dan´s eyes are a little too small. If you cover up his eyes, I think it looks even more accurate. While we were having the caricature done, another artist decided to draw me as well (I must have inspired him!):
