Oh Hey, From Cuenca!

We’ve made it to the Southern Highlands!! It was touch-and-go there for a while; I think the out-of-diapers kid behind me on the last leg of our flight crapped his pants and then his parents covered up the smell with 72 sprays of CK One, and I’m still mad about it. Then we got to baggage claim in Cuenca it was an effing bloodbath. There is universally recognized black-and-yellow striped line surrounding the bag conveyor, which obviously means “wait on the other side of this line” and so Kevin and I did; meanwhile the entire rest of the plane gassed us out and also brought about 72 collective baggage carts into the mix (because everyone we traveled with seemed to have at least 5 bags!?) and it was like that scene from Boardwalk Empire when Knucky and Irish Sidepiece-turned-wife have that party and throw open all of these chests filled with jewels and these otherwise civilized guests start busting noses to get their hands on the goods only the goods are your individual luggage . And all from this in the airport of a teeny, genteel little town. But I’ll get edged out of the your baggage claim area any time you want, Cuenca, because I think I love you.

Cuenca, I Love You.

The town of Cuenca can give you whiplash if you’re not careful. On the surface, it’s all gentle colonial charm and a sense of timelessness traditionalism: Cathedral squares on what seems like every other block, Cholas Cuencanas in long, dark braids and happy-colored skirts accompanied by gentlemen in Panama hats and all waiting outside the church for the next service, red-roofed Spanish style casitas and tiendas selling everything from pastries to custom hats to antiques, a $2.50 lunch that makes you never want to go anywhere else for Almuerzos ever again.

But then, wiggle a little further into the depths of the city and find a market with a thousand types of fruits and vegetables and veritably every fish there is in the sea, or a garden palace that transports you into the Alcazár of Seville (the fact that the hotel name is La Mansión Alcazár is not just a clever name), exploding all five of your senses in some insane hyper stimulating warp-zone of colors, smells, sounds, pans people (and some hummingbirds).

I think I like it here a lot.

We’re staying in a wonderful business-person’s hotel about 3km outside of city center, which affords is the opportunity to take advantage of a badass breakfast and dinner buffet each morning and evening; if you like food a lot then Ecuador and specifically Cuenca should be underlined in red on your travel list. I need all new pants when I get back.

Food In Cuenca, Be Still my Heart

My new love in life is a little warm doughy ball of heaven which goes by the unassuming name of “Yuca Bread” but would be more appropriately named as baked-cheese-masquerading-as-bread-party-in-your-mouth. There’s also the Locro de Papas, which is a soup made out of the 3 best ingredients there are: cheese, potatoes and avocado. Barbecued meats are standard fare at breakfast time, and there is an ongoing rotation of 15 different kinds of juice at every meal: Orange, Strawberry, Tamarind, Papaya, Tomates del Arbol, Guava, Mango, Strawberry, Guanabana, Raspberry, Passion Fruit, Dragonfruit, Pineapple, Banana-something, and Melón have all made an appearance so far. See I wasn’t kidding.

Cafe Moliendo, Be Still My Heart Even More

And in between hotel bingeing, there’s the food in the actual city. We made our pilgrimage to the little Colombian restaurant called Café Moliendo which has been billed as the best almuerzo in all of South Ecuador, and it did not disappoint.

We paid $2.50 each for El Menú Ejecutivo Almuerzo which got us a banana (they taste different/better here I don’t know what it is but I’m certain of it), a glass of raspberry passion fruit juice, a big bowl of potato soup, rice, beef, and guacamolé. My $2 Colombian beer (Poker! It’s a higher ranked on our growing international beer list toward the top beer Bingtang!) cost almost as much as the entire lunch and it was worth it. The people who own this joint are awesome, and best of all there’s an old bell that everyone who is happy with their service reaches up and rings as they walk out of the place. I didn’t get a picture of this because I felt self-conscious, and looking back obviously this has been a big mistake. I’m making Kevin go back with me the day after tomorrow so I can take another go at getting this on film. Because, pics or it didn’t happen.

We spent the first half of the day wandering through miles of cobblestone streets, watching uniformed Catholic School groups of boys and girls mill about and tell jokes and flirt with each other, watching teens hop in the back of Datsuns to catch a ride with their friend’s brother who can drive, and nodding to the nuns, who are everywhere. We also saw many, many churches.

La Catedral Nueva

This place is gorgeous. There is shrine after shrine inside, stained glass to take your breathe away on every wall and over your head, and the altar is completely covered in gold-leaf in the fashion of the Vatican. Prayer candles are brought to the Catedral by visitors and lit and left to burn within various offering tables, and it’s hard not to be overwhelmed with a sense of awe amongst all those who have come to pray or just be in the presence of the church. I’ve been lucky enough to visit many churches in many countries and cities, and La Catedral Nuevo is one of my favorites.

La Mansión Alcazár

The best discovery of the day was stumbling upon La Mansión Alcazár, a fancy-AF hotel that we’d wanted to book but was sold out on the United Miles site, and getting to ring the “we only let you in from the inside, IF we feel like it” doorbell. Most of the traditional hotels in Cuenca have a cool atrium-style architecture, with internal upper floor balconies overlooking great rooms or restaurants situated on the ground floor, with never ending ceiling space above, and La Mansión Alcazár also features a mind-blowingly beautiful Secret-Garden-style conservatory outback that smells like 8,000 perfumes mixed together and has tiny little indigo-jewel hummingbirds dancing around your head.

We looked presentable enough for them to let us in and allow us to enjoy a bottle of wine back in the gardens, and it was pretty much the best. I think they were second-guessing letting us in by the end because we ordered a round of glasses after our bottle was kicked (because VACATION!!) but we’ll just see how it goes when we try to book a room here for our last night.

A Quick Aside on Travelling and the Humans You’ll Encounter

Upon leaving this paradise in a nice little wine-buzzed haze, we tumbled into a picture-perfect square just around the corner where a bunch of sweet children were playing soccer with their parents and they were all just laughing together and kicking the ball around and then two guys in their teens were hanging out on a park bench and working on a song they were writing, strumming some notes and writing things down and then trying it again. And so of course in my loopy little state in this perfect little square with a cloudless sky overhead I started to cry a little because it was all just so pretty and I have a lot of feelings just like that rainbow cake girl from Mean Girls.

I just think it’s funny that sometimes we travel halfway across the world to experience things we’ve never seen before that we think will color in some new square in our life that can’t be colored by staying put, and then we encounter moments like this, in some unfamiliar street, that knock all of our grand visions down and we realize that traveling usually just ends up showing us that the things that make us happy back home are most often times the things that make us all happy wherever we are. It’s a nice feeling, and it’s humbling, and I hate to use that word but it just is.

La Fería Libre (smell heaven)

So anyway, after I was done with my behind-the-sunglasses tears, we took a $1.60 cab ride into the most dazzling thing ever: La Féria Libre. I’ve never been on such visual overload and there wasn’t even any nature, unless you count the wild, wild flurry of stacks upon stacks of every fruit, vegetable, and piece of produce otherwise imaginable, as far as you can see. Then turn a corner and see what looks like the whole ocean laid out in front of you, with vendors shouting about tuna this and snapper that and grabbing your arm to point out even more fish, dozens of them, that you’re quite certain you’ve never even heard of eating before but now you really want to eat them all. And as you wander though all the fruits and fish and potatoes, you’ll enjoy the overarching roast pig smell that transcends everything else.

It. Was. A. Trip. And of course as Kevin described it, you feel like a dick taking pictures of people and their goods that they are working hard to sell and aren’t there to please tourists (we didn’t see any others except for us), so must of my pictures are sneaky and not great, except of course for the two photos where I finally got some nerve and learned that politely asking people for their photograph pays off! Meet my awesome fish market friend, and the gleaming produce being sold by my fruit vendor friend, Michelle.

I can’t believe that we almost didn’t go to the Féria Libre because it was 2 miles away, as it was the highlight of an otherwise already amazing day. Go to Cuenca, go to the churches, go to the Alcazár Garden, and don’t miss La Féria Libre under any circumstances or it’s not wroth going to Cuenca at all.

More from our rustic lodge stop in the Andes Cloud forest soon; currently we are rained in again and listening to holly roofers right outside of our window use chainsaws and hammers. Oh, sweet romance…