Cuenca is Cool

Oh Cuenca, how beautiful you are. Cuenca was like an oasis after the terrible border crossing we had. So happy to be in Ecuador! Cuenca is the most unique city that we have been to on this Latin America tour 2007 and the only place we could both see ourselves living in for a long period of time. The city is very modern yet has beautiful colonial architecture that they have maintained quite well. It is also a university town which always lends itself to great nightlife and good cheap eateries. While in Cuenca one gets the feeling that they´re doing well here, life is good.

Our first day in town we walked pretty much the entire city. We had some errands to run and Cuenca was a great place to get them done. Walking on the nice streets was a treat and for once we didn´t feel like people were going to run us over with their cars as we crossed the street. We caught an art exhibit of an American  funny/dark artist who drew pictures of Bush, Condy, Rummie, Chenny. It was quite macabre and  interesting to say the least, maybe we'll remember the name some day.

Of course we ate a bunch as Cuenca has delicious food to offer. Actually, we ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant where people write on the walls. One such scribble said "Your food made me sick. Love, Christine". We guessed that this coud have been our own lovely Christine as she studied in Cuenca for some months and come to find out, it was! Haha, of course Merker would say that.

On Saturday afternoon, we had a lovely time. We took a little trip to Baños, about 20 min. away from Cuenca and went to the thermal baths. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and there were many people there chilling out on their Saturday afternoon. We also partook in the steam room with the steam coming directly from the hot water running down the mountain. It felt very healthy. We returned to Cuenca refreshed and again attempted and failed to see a movie. We´re very awesome at this.

Leaving Cuenca was tough as we both could have stayed here for a least a week. We thoroughly enjoyed our time here and would recommend it to anyone who likes good cities.