Guayaquil and Cuenca – Sunday, Monday, Tuesday

It´s been a fairly busy few days, or at lest we haven´t stopped much and I don´t know where the time is disappearing. The last day in the Galapagos flew by and before we knew it we were in Guayaquil and it was Sunday afternoon. After a quick trip to find a bed for the night we headed for the Parque Historico, whcih I really loved. We got to see lots of animals from the area as well as traditional (colonail) dress and architecture. We had a great guide, which makes all the diference and it was hard to believe that the tour was 2 ½ hours long.

On Monday we covered the main tourist sites of Guayaquil – Las Peñas (a sector of brightly coloured, restored houses), El Malecón 2000 (the recently developed boulevard with amazing green areas and shopping malls), El Parque Semenario (a park in the middle of a huge city with iguanas running around, you just have to be careful walking under trees as they like to climb). 24 hours is about the right amount of time to stay in Guayaquil and we caught the bus to Cuenca in the afternoon. I finally got to see the Cajas route (shorter and more scenic) and mum spent most of the time with her nose to the window taking in the views as we passed banana plantations, fruit markets, small towns and finally climbed over 3000m to go over the pass to Cuenca. The trip takes 4 hours and the first 2 hours are on the flat, so the climb is pretty steep and spectacular – especially with the mist. I have become a bit blazé about the scenary around here (there´s a limit to how long you can be amazed by banana plantations and ferns and dry forests) but it´s neet seeing someone else see it all for the first time and it really is spectacular.

Today we explored Cuenca and I love this city – it´s great to be back here. Everything feels so familiar and so safe. It´s the first city we have felt comfortable walking around at night and we´ve found a great restaurant on the main square that has a really awesome light shade made out of broken crockery.

Will add photos soon.

Smile
Hazel :)