Healing, Cuenca style

So I planned my trip to Cuenca alright. I got an airplane at 10am this morning for the short flight down. I am pressed for time, not feeling well and the bus ride is 10 hours. No thanks. The $80 bucks was completely worth it.

I got in about 11am. I took a taxi to the hostel I read about in Lonely Planet. On the way there, we passed a "Paseo del Niño" parade around one of the churches in town. The taxi driver explained that it was probably one of the city`s neighborhoods that got together and decided to do the procession and then they go back to their neighborhood and have a big party.

Problem was that once I got to the hostel, no one answered when I rang the bell. I wanted to stay there since it was so highly recommended, I decided to have a cup of coffee at the cafe and breakfast place right next door. What great people! The women who run the Cafe are awesome! I sat next to an amazing couple from the states. They have traveled all over, but are living in their house here in Cuenca and are in the middle of remodeling it. As much as they love Cuenca, it is a bit too chilly at night for them, so part of the remodel is putting in a heating system. People don`t heat their homes here, so they have had to bring in a guy they know from another country to install it because no one knows how to do it. Hopefully the system won`t need maintenance, right?

At any rate, after a cup of amazing real coffee, I went back and rang the bell at the hostel again. Since I didn´t call ahead, they were full for the night. So I went back to get my bag from the cafe and the women told me that the hostel attached to their cafe is really nice. So I went and looked at it - it was great and the two women who run it are so awesome! I was hoping for a single room with a private bathroom (in case I got sick again), but all they had were beds in the dorm style rooms. The room and the whole hostel was beautiful and clean so I took it.

How glad I am that I took that bed, but I will get into that later. I put my stuff away and grabbed what I needed to go check out the Paseo del Niño and some of the churches if I felt up to it.

The Paseo was amazing! I saw several other gringos enjoying the show and taking pictures as well, but most of the crowd was Cuencan. It was a wonderful surprise to be able to see the Paseo since it´s a bit late in the season for them. After the Paseo went by, I walked through the main food Market in Cuenca enjoying the fruits and vegetables, meats, etc. From there I headed to the main plaza with the New Church, saw the flower market nearby and wandered through the local outdoor market selling all sorts of things for the locals.

I sat for a bit resting in the beautiful park next to the cathedral before heading back to the hostel for a nap. The joys of vacation!! As I came in to the hostel to take my nap, I ran into another American trying her best to inquire about a room or bed for tomorrow. I helped her out, and they brought her up to check out the room. She liked it and will stay in our room tomorrow night. Wendy is here to study Spanish. She´s from Fort Collins, Colorado - what a great fun person!!

I got to meet one of the other people in the room, Franceso, from Milano, Italy who is taking an entire year to travel through South America. When I mentioned that I would be going up to the Mirador, the viewpoint over Cuenca, he said if he was around he would love to go.

So about 5pm, as Francesco got back to the hostel, he ran into Wendy downstairs, and the other person in our room, Anna, came back. So, all four of us crammed into a taxi and headed up to the Mirador. The view was amazing and the company was even better! We sat and chatted, shot pictures and shared a couple of beers as the sun set over the city. We decided it was time to get some dinner and head back down to the City.

After some searching, we found a nice cafe in the center. We shared some llapingachos, which are traditional food of the Ecuadorian Andes. They are fried potato pancakes with fresh mozarella cheese inside. So good! I ate mine slowly, but my stomach was doing great. Hopefully I am finally over this bug.

My mistake was ordering a shrimp stirfry. What was I thinking? As soon as it came and the smell of the seafood hit me, I knew it was a bad idea. I managed to take a bite, and it was delicious. After about a minute I knew I was going to lose the battle. I ran for the bathroom and proceeded to puke all over the tiny bathroom. I barely made it into the bathroom, and it was all I could do to get most if it in the toilet. Of course, the toilet paper was gone, so I couldn´t even clean up some of it... I have never been so embarrassed in my life as when I had to ask one of the waiters for a rag or something. He of course refused to let me clean anything up. I was SOOO embarrassed.

The best part: I had managed to get some of it on my jeans....

I was able to eat a little bit of the rice that came with the stirfry and I took the rest of the rice home with me.

So yeah, apparently my stomach isn`t quite over this shit.... Awesome. But the company was great, so it didn´t seem so bad! Meeting fellow loke minded travelers was exactly was I needed and these three are wonderful. We had a great time hanging out, which was perfect. It seems sometimes that these things are meant to be, or at least serendipitous.