Saturday, November 10, 2012

The nicest city till date - Cuenca


For our disbelieve we found clean city!!!!  
Too much plastic packaging, stray dogs, scavenging birds and people who simply throw garbage to the floor…this is what makes Ecuador look so dirty. And here in Cuenca streets are just so clean. Hard to believe someone cares about cleaning.
All in general we were pleased about the way how city works. Tourist office workers finally spoke English and gave us appropriate tips and directions. And so we took day to visit highlights of Cuenca city. Flower market, food market, Panama hat factory, several museums and outdoor historical sites. In one of the museums Nuno got lesson of history of Canaris and Incas and Spanish conquestors. How Incas wanted to get rid of Canaris so Canaris made pact with Spanish to eliminate Incas. Once Incas were eliminated Spanish killed Canaris. Just as we use to say in Slovakia: “Where 2 fight, 3rd is the winner.” In Pumamungo historical site we finally saw LAMAS from near distance!!!! Lamas, lamas, lamas :D None of them spit on us but they were spitting on each other :D :D Lamas :D For the end of city tour we hop on bus which took us to view point. And there we could “admire” whole Cuenca from above.
Early morning bus took us to Cajas national park. Arriving at 7.25am to the park we had to wait for workers to arrive just because park opens at 8am. Nevermind. So we sat on cold concrete path and watched birds hopping around. Guard who looked more as prison than park guard was super impolite and kept starring at us as we were some tiffs. Maybe we wanted to still a bit of water from lagoons or capture birds :D  Anyway, workers finally arrived and we could head on our way. With lack of proper markings and broken signs we got lost twice, well only twice. At first in forestry area and second time waterfall capture our attention and we kept walking on the path upstream. After some time we realized there was nowhere to go. We looked and looked and couldn´t see any path. Eventually we spot people walking far away down near lagoon. On the path we took, there were 29 points to see. From 29 we saw only 3 boards and rest were lonely broken sticks. Great way, how to keep visitors save! Park itself is beautiful, hills, mountains, streams, waterfalls and lagoons everywhere you look. It was impressive 5 hours of walk.
On the way back to city we got a ride thank to Argentinean couple, who were hitch hiking. It took 3 cars and bus to get us back to city J exciting day J … nice time in Cuenca.

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