Plans for the future.

We have now been living in Cuenca for almost a month, which means that we need to commit to another month on our apartment´s lease or move on. We have really enjoyed Cuenca for its wonderful art and variety of food. But because there isn´t a possiblity of getting a work visa here we have decided to move on. Our destination is Bariloche, Argentina. We have looked into flying down there but the cost of tickets is out of our budget so we have decided to bus. It is going to be a long bus trip. But this way we get to see Peru. We are planning on taking our time so we can see as much as possible. Destinatons on our list include the beach, Chan Chan (an ancient adobe city), Machu Picchu, El Misti Volcano, colca canyon, mendoza... I don´t know thats starting to sound like a lot so we´ll see and keep everyone posted. Before we go I thought I´d post some last pictures of things from Cuenca.

The New Cathedral. This is right on the main plaza downtown.

This is our apartment building. The photo is taken from the 84 stairs across the river which we climb multiple time a day to get to downtown.

We saw this awesome pot we saw at a museum. I don´t remember which culture it came from but it is pre-Incan.

Vilcabamba

A little glimpse into the town of Vilcabamba. A nice little town nestled against the surrounding mountains.

This picture was taken from the bus on the way back. We must have climbed to over 12,000 ft. The views were just expansive, and luckily there were some clouds to make for good photos.

Podocarpus National Park

A nice relief from the hot and humid day at La Cascada Poderosa (the strong waterfall).

The Eastern side of the Podocarpus which is mostly cloud forest.

A catepillar which we saw on the trail. Look, don´t touch.

I don´t remember the name of this waterfall exactl. I think it translated to something like "the little joker".

We didn´t have to cross this bridge... but we did just so that we could say that we had. The biggest fear was probably tetnus (which we are now vaccinated against).

Pictures of Zamora

The view of town from our hotel room. Every morning we woke up to clouds hidding the mountains and town.
This is the plaza and church. Both were really nice.

traveling

We returned home to Cuenca on Friday night form our little vacation to the South of Ecuador (this is a ridiculous statement…true in some sense and a very enjoyable concept to toy with). We needed to travel; Cuenca is lovely but without having a job, school, and a purpose it is easy to get wrapped up in one’s own head of “what the hell am I doing here?” So you get out of the city and all of a sudden drinking a Pilsner (local beer) at a café on the plaza in a silly little town gives you purpose, “it is all so clear to me now.”

The trip started with a four and half hour bus ride through the winding mountains to Loja (pretty much the biggest city in the region, 160,000 people) where we hopped off that bus and hopped onto another within 15 minutes that took us to Zamora. The primary reason we wanted to go down to this part of Ecuador was to visit the Parque Nacional de Podecarpus (Ecuador park baggin!) which is a pretty extensive area at least in diversity: if you visit it on one side, more by Loja, you have similar terrain as the Cajas park (see older post for photos). Conversely, on the Zamora side you are considered in the Orient of Ecuador which is the lush Amazonish jungle part of Ecuador. I am sure by now you see the draw that Jeff and I had to go to Zamora.

Other than the national park the town of Zamora didn’t offer that much, it was cute but very quiet (other than all the roosters). We took a taxi the 8 kilometers to the park entrance early Monday morning and arranged for the man to come and pick us up at 4 in the afternoon. From the entrance there was still a 1 km. hike into the ranger station just to weed out the timid hikers. From the ranger station there was a map showing the network of trails mounted to the wall. There was no ranger to provide us any interpretation of the map (since it was hand-drawn with no indication of trail length or elevation change), so I took a picture with the digital camera and we set off to see something. Although the cloud forest was pulsing with life it was sadly not orchid season so there were not many to be seen.

We had a terrific time; we saw a couple of waterfalls and swam in the river only ever seeing a lone Spaniard and the ranger who was at his post as we were leaving the park. We foolishly thought we would hike the mirador trail (lookout) and try to get a vantage point because the canopy was so thick it was impossible to get a photo showing the lush green valley. The trail was super steep and covered with fallen leaves which made it slippery to boot. We probably climbed 80% of it before we decided it wasn’t worth it since the climb down might be harder than the way up. Later we found out that there used to be a rope handrail on the trail to make it not an “on all 4s” scramble up the mountain.

We had planned on only spending the one day in the park and heading out on Tuesday. The plan changed while waiting for our bus we watched the longest parade I have ever seen (it must have been for the entire state, Zamora is the capital) and later found out that busses weren’t even running to Loja due to the parade!?!? Sometimes you just shrug your shoulders and say well that is inconvenient and doesn’t make any sense and change your plans. So we went back to the park hiked the last couple of trails we missed the first day and sat by the river and painted.

We got out of Zamora on Wednesday morning and headed to Vilcabamba (tiny town south of Loja), because it was hailed as the place to go and relax, get massages, and enjoy spa services offered by all the hotels. We stayed at a silly cheep hotel that had a pool, Jacuzzi, and Turkish bath which was all very nice. It was a very touristy little town (more expats than travelers) which made for a lot of really good food options. We enjoyed the little hippy village but all the expats gave the town a feeling of already being discovered and exploited by the Europeans, Americans, and Canadians (this is just my jaded perception). From Vilcabamba we returned back to Cuenca with no hassle.

Hope the long story blogs work for you all and you don’t get bored midway though, we really enjoy sharing our experiences this way. Hope all is well where you are…sorry to those in Laramie with the snowy weather.

Love, Red.

My New Panama Hat

Last week, while Lindsay and I were wondering around town, I was flagged down from across the street by a man who was very concerned about my bald head being exposed to the sun. He was a really nice guy who immediately went to work trying to find me an appropriate hat. We had to go upstairs to his studio because my head is too large for standard hats. When we got upstairs we realized that we had been flagged down by Alberto Pulla who was written up as the most famous panama hat maker in Cuenca. Which says a lot because Cuenca is known for its panama hats. Why? I have no idea. But they even have a museum dedicated to them. Alberto Pulla is over 70 and has been makin hats since he was 6 years old. His studio was filled with paintings of him making hats, articles and photos published about him, and of course lots of hats. he took it upon himself to find me the perfect hat. I had a little say which one I got I pretty much just gave myself over to his judgement and he picked me out one just for me. so now I finally have a panama hat which I promised I´d get for Deb. You were right Deb its exactly what I needed.

Jeff (Beacon)

P.S.
Last week we were at a fireworks show downtown and the President showed up. So thats 2 of the last 10 Ecuadorian Presidents that we have had the chance to see or meet. Oh Yeah this is a small country.

We finally got out of the city.

As i am sure many of you are aware Jeff and I are not city folk, i have moments of love for the bustle but I enjoy my mountains and the fresh air compared to the smelly bus exhaust. So Jeff and I took a day trip to the national park south of Cuenca called Cajas. It is a rather extreme panorama: a conundrum of dry but also marshy land with lakes around every bend. We thought that since we are seasoned hikers and coming from relatively high altitude background that we could handle a hike that was up a mountain…we would just take our time. We ended up finding a “easier” hike that just traversed around the many mountains with some elevation change- it still felt like a punch to the lungs. Just marching up a little incline would leave us breathless and in need of a break. After all our hike started somewhere at 12,500ft and reached over 13,000 ft. It was great to get some fresh air and see a few birds, if only we could have been able to stop (we took the bus back to the city so no control over the breaks) at one of the little mountain restaurants on the side of the road advertizing fresh trout.
Today we are back in the city, but planning our next tour which will be to Loja in the southern part of the country to visit el parquet nacional de Podocarpus…a little bit more of lush tropical hiking maybe with orchid viewing.

Hope all is well,
Lindsay (red)
p.s. we saw llamas

Pumapungo

This is from Pumapungo which is an old ruin from the previous city before Cuenca was built. It was left by the Inca´s long before Cuenca was settled so there is only speculation about the size and siqnificance.

Too adorable

This whole week has been here in Cuenca holiday to celebrate 'living basin'. On Sunday we went to this park where there was a festival celebrating tradional food and garments. We watched these kids dance for awhile to some traditional music. Our adorable meter could´ve only been higher if there would have been a dancing panda in the mix.

The first picture is from the bridge over the river in front of our apartment. The second is one of the many Churchs around downtown.