Day one in Cuenca

Our day began with a trip to the airport in search of our lost baggage.  This journey ended with success!  Baggage in tow, we hoofed it to the place where we were  told we could hire a shared van to Cuenca.  The 3 1/2 hour drive up, up, up to Cuenca was pleasant. Not exactly first class, no wine, but it was not bad. One especially windy stretch of the road became terribly foggy we could hardly see at all but the driver never took off his dark sunglasses! Yikes!   After arriving in Cuenca we caught a taxi to our hotel, Villa Nova.  It’s a nice place right by the river. Our room is facing the river so the sound of the rushing water is quite pleasant.

After getting ourselves settled into our hotel we thought it was time for a walk to check out the city and get acclimated .  From our hotel we have to climb 89 steps up to the old town.  At 8200 ft 89 steps is surprisingly challenging !  But we survived !  We will be burning some calories on this trip.  We found a place to grab an early dinner and a much needed beer for Scott.  Tummy’s full we continued our expedition around the city.   I had read about a big festival that is going on in the Park Calderon so off we went to find it.  Sweet success! And I do mean SWEET! The park was teeming with booths piled high with candy, cookies, cakes and goodies I couldn’t identify but looked scrumptious ! I took lots of pictures and as soon as I figure out how to post multiple pictures I’ll do that.

There were lots of families strolling around enjoying the festival and the sweets.  While we were walking through both Scott and I were approached separately by a group of kids, about middle school age. They were working on a school project , notebooks in hand, and wanted to ask us a few questions.  They asked where we live and what we thought of Ecuador .  We were both very impressed by their good English . As a matter of fact it’s been a bit surprising how many people speak at least a little broken English . I really didn’t expect to find much at all. I really look forward to being able to communicate in Spanish!  I’m sure it gonna be awhile before I can converse but I’ll get there eventually .

Tomorrow we meet Dan for breakfast then he’s driving us around and showing us some of the smaller towns outside the city. For those of you who don’t know, Dan is a fellow blogger whose blog I have enjoyed following for some time. I got in touch with him and he will be our tour guide for two days.  I’m looking forward to meeting him in person but I already know he’s a kindred spirit because he has already done what we’re still only dreaming of doing.  It’s always good to get first hand knowledge so I feel really lucky to get to connect with Dan.

It’ about time to call it a day so I’ll say…..Buenos Noches!