So my time here in Ecuador is slowing down and coming to an end, I can´t say that I´m sad but I am beyond beleif grateful for the opportunity that I have been able to take advantage of...
So last weekend I did nothing but watch X-files season 9 and work on monografías(final papers). I´m sort of traveled out after the weekend before last when we went to Cuenca...about 10 hours normally away. We took a night bus the same time I wrote my last post. Traveling at night is by far the best idea ever. We paid for a $10 bus ride at 10pm to get there and just slept on the bus and got there around 7:30am, found a hostal and went out for breakfast. There was something about the city that was very warm and inviting.
Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador behind Guayaquil and Quito. It was an important colonial center in the 16th century. Much of that colonial past is ever present in Cuenca. Unlike 
Quito there were very few parts that did not display some remnant of it´s colonial past, the architecture, the churches, even the streets with there narrow cobble stone structure. We heard there was an orquidearea(an orchid garden). So we looked in our Lonely Planet book and asked people and took a bus...to a suburbian town about 20min away called Orquids! So we played in a playground there before going to the acutal orquiedearea on the other side of town...which was closed because it was a holiday. We got to Cuenca for the weekend of there Founder´s Day.
It was a neat celebration filled with parades throughout the main plaza and all around
our hostal. It was funny and sad at the same time because for the most part they had elementary schools marching in cute little uniforms representing their schools. About half of them had bugles, trumpets without the valves. But the kids were just taught to blow as hard as they can into the mouthpiece and probably received little to know musical instructions because ooooweeee did they sound rough. But I guess I can cut them a little slack since they were 6-15...but it was still brutal. All in all it was a very good trip and Cuenca was a very warm city that reminded me of Birmingham.
Quito there were very few parts that did not display some remnant of it´s colonial past, the architecture, the churches, even the streets with there narrow cobble stone structure. We heard there was an orquidearea(an orchid garden). So we looked in our Lonely Planet book and asked people and took a bus...to a suburbian town about 20min away called Orquids! So we played in a playground there before going to the acutal orquiedearea on the other side of town...which was closed because it was a holiday. We got to Cuenca for the weekend of there Founder´s Day.It was a neat celebration filled with parades throughout the main plaza and all around
our hostal. It was funny and sad at the same time because for the most part they had elementary schools marching in cute little uniforms representing their schools. About half of them had bugles, trumpets without the valves. But the kids were just taught to blow as hard as they can into the mouthpiece and probably received little to know musical instructions because ooooweeee did they sound rough. But I guess I can cut them a little slack since they were 6-15...but it was still brutal. All in all it was a very good trip and Cuenca was a very warm city that reminded me of Birmingham.
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