Month: September 2016

Cuenca to Loja

This morning at our hotel we had The best breakfast  we have had on our trip.  The fruit is called a granadilla. It is like a passion fruit only sweeter.  The corn kernels in the eggs are mote and the juice is watermelon juice. 


At 11 am we went to the bus station to catch the bus to  Loja. The Quenca bus station was very busy. That’s me waiting with our bags. 


The bus to Loja was worn out. We bounced along like we were riding in a big old diesel truck. We chugged slowly up the hills and swayed down the hills and around the corners. After four and a half hours we made it to Loja. I couldn’t read or I would have gotten motion sickness so I looked out the window and listened to podcasts. 

Once we got to Loja we wandered about town for a bit and Duke bought our tickets to Piura in Peru for tomorrow. There are two buses a day one at 7 am and one at 11 pm. We are taking the 7am bus. I think we will have to set an alarm. 


Ecuador has been wonderful. What a beautiful country and what nice people. 

Baños to Cuenca

Today was a first. I’ve never before been on a bus that got lost.  Our bus from Baños to Cuenca left Baños at 8:45. It was another nice bus and was about a third full. Almost everyone on board was a backpacker. 

About an hour into the trip the road was blocked for road work and the driver had to turn  back. As he tried to find his way around the road work he kept stopping to ask directions. I think the people he was asking directions of had no idea how much room a bus needs to turn. We eventually came to a turn that was too tight. There was no way we could proceed. Fortunately each bus has a conductor. So with the help of the conductor we backed up a ways. Then the driver spent about 20 minutes trying to back into a driveway and turn around. Eventually he tried another driveway which I think was a chicken farm. As the chickens watched we were able to back completely into the chicken yard and then pull out going the other direction. A little red pickup driven by a bystander pulled out ahead of us and acted as a pilot car to lead us to the main road and after about 15 more minutes we were on our way. I wish I had taken a picture of the chickens!

Google says it is 201 miles from Baños to Cuenca and should take 5 hrs and 45 minutes. It took us 8 hours. That is a long time to sit on a bus but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Baños is at 5,955 ft and Cueca is at 8,400 ft. Along the way our road went up to well over 12,000 ft. The whole route had farms and houses. We saw people plowing a field with oxen and wooden plow. We stopped frequently to pick up people and a few miles down the road let them off.  Duke had a long conversation with a 67 year old indigenous man who was wearing a wonderful red knit poncho. The road switchbacked up and up and up and then switchbacked down and down and down. The vistas were expansive and the drop offs steep. 

The only down side of the ride was the three very violent very loud movies that were shown on the bus. 

In Cuenca we are staying at a wonderful hotel, Los Balcones. It is right in the historic center of Cuenca. And our room even has one of those showers with five shower heads!


We walked through the town exploring a bit. 


Then we had dinner at El Mercado the top rated restaurant on Trip Advisor. Here you can see our view and my yummy Camarones al Diablo. 


On our way back to the Hotel we happened upon the Jazz Society of Ecuador and stopped in to listen.  There was a quintet playing. The vocalist and pianist (Katie Kat and Jonn Cain) have recently moved to Cuenca from San Diego. After the show we had a long conversation with him. The bass player (Cristian Torres I think) is the principal bass player with the Cuenca orchestra. The Spanish saxophonist (Gilberto Rivera) had done a concert the night before with his own group. Unfortunately I didn’t catch the drummer’s name. The music was great! At the break a very talented local man whose name I also didn’t get played acoustic guitar and sang some songs by Silvio Rodriguez. We thoroughly enjoy ourselves for over an hour. 


Our Last Day in Baños

This morning we went out to breakfast with our teachers since it was our last day of classes. Thank you Cristina and Estefany for your help!

Then we all walked around town a bit. They took us into a store which makes things from the Tagua or Ivory Nut Palm. The ivory nut is used as a vegetable substitute for ivory. You can see the nuts and their pod in the pictures below. 


This afternoon Duke and I took a bus up the mountain to a lookout on the mountain top call Casa del Arbol. The bus was full so Duke and I were standing. A man gave me his seat and I was able to have a nice conversation with his wife using my limited Spanish. They were visiting Baños from Quito. 


For a one dollar entrance fee to Casa del Arbol we rode a giant swing and a fun little zip line.  And the clouds cleared a bit so that we were able to see the giant Tungurahua Volcano which erupted as recently as March of this year. 

Baños Day 5

Here is a picture of break time in the common area in Mayra’s Spanish School where we are taking classes. 


When we went for our walk today we went over to the San Francisco Bridge and watched the adventurers jumping off the bridge. It is like bungee jumping but the jumpers swing on a rope instead!

The town on the right is Baños. 
On the way back to school we bought sugar cane and shared it. It was my first time chewing sugar cane. It was very good, sweet but not too sweet. 


On Saturday we will leave Baños and go to Cuenca. There is one bus a day at 8:45 in the morning that goes from Baños to Cuenca. This morning we also stopped at the bus station and bought our tickets for Saturday morning. 

Earlier in the week Myra from the Spanish school said that the paella at the local Spanish restaurant, Taska, is really good but you have to order it at least an hour in advance. So this afternoon we ordered it and tonight we ate at Taska had the paella with sangria. It was as good as it looks. 

Baños day 4 and La Ruta de las Cascadas. 

We haven’t found a good place to buy coffee in the morning before class so this morning we made our own coffee in our shared kitchen and feasted on pastries from the panaderia around the corner. These four cost $1.


During our Spanish class this morning we went for a walk with our teachers and practiced our Spanish conversation skills.


This afternoon we took a bus tour along the road east of Baños. It is called the Ruta de las Cascadas or the Waterfall Route. 

At the our first stop we took an awesome cable car ride over the Rio Pastaza canyon. 


At the next stop, the Manto de la Novia waterfall you could zip line over the canyon if you wanted to. We didn’t. It was such a long ride over the river and the waterfall that the zip line riders disappeared on the other side. 

For the whole tour it was raining but that really didn’t detract from the beauty. 


Our final stop was the incredible Pailón del Diablo – Devil’s Canyon Waterfalls. We hiked over a couple of suspension bridges and down a trail cut into the cliff wall to see the thundering falls – one of the best I have ever seen.