Hosteria Ushupud Cuenca

... living daylights out of the white-knuckled passengers.
5) Swerve incessantly aiming for potholes so that the LCD tv (that you are not using to show movies) violently BREAKS OFF its mounting and almost kills several passengers in seats 15 and 16.

Lesson 2: Overtaking
1) Wait until you notice a line of oncoming trucks (the bigger the better, nothing under a 10-tonner)
2) When oncoming ...

... it is the one with the sky blue domes). We did lots of people watching that day.
The following day we had a tour with the company, Kushi Waira. It was an all day guided tour of a nearby indigenous community, Tarqui. There was one other couple on the trip, Nathan and Lin, who happen to live in Berkley...small world! We drove about thirty minutes outside of Cuenca and we were greeted with breakfast and canelazo. Our tour guide was Alfonso and he took us on a hike through ...

... and all this beautiful tile is covered with dust! Sweeping is hopeless. Dust mopping helps. Today I bought a thing to use on the floor—wet, so all the dust that the broom and the mops miss can get washed up. I like going barefoot in the house, but notice these blasted little fleas like to bite tender ankles. So, I’m mopping and washing and trying to get rid of the little biting bugs. I have to chill out about the tile!

You can hardly buy ...

... on the road, about who moved one of the twelve possessions you have with you and didn’t put it back (it’s an absolute mystery of backpacking that you can lose so much stuff and yet have so little with you to begin with)). At about ten to six in the morning the Saturday cartoons started blaring through the walls with the customary deep, resonant voices that all Spanish dubbing / cartoons have. I’m really starting to think hostels are like training wheels ...

We went in search of breakfast at 10.15am, unaware that they stop serving breakfast at 9.30am. After some pleading and a bit of a telling-off by the mother however, they made an exception. Bread, jam coffee, juice. After this we went off to explore the town.

Cuenca is quite possibly the most aesthetically-delightful city I've ever had the pleasure to visit. Nearly every minute is a lovely sight prompting you to reach for your camera. Walking north/south, streets ...

... buses left- it’s nearly impossible to find out bus schedules departing from other cities given very few are online and you can never get through to ticket offices over the phone. All in all, the crossing had taken us about 1.5 hours.

Our day of learning continued on our ‘directo’ bus ride to Cuenca, which took nearly 5 ½ hours instead of the 3 in the guide book (we’ll seriously be ready to burn lonely planet by the end of our time ...

... his works. He was quite an abstract artist, similar to Picasso with some images. There are some fantastic portraits of people quite gaunt and very troubled. Most faces leave quite a disturbing impression on your mind and I thought they were fantastic. There were some landscapes of Quito and some more traditional portraits of women and his family, but it was the partially abstract upset people that were so well known.

We then went through a few streets to the ...

The journey from Puerto Lopez to Cuenca took me through the city of Guayaquil, and its massive bus terminal/mini-metropolis. Guayaquil invested a lot in building the most enormous land transport monstrosity structure in all of Ecuador (and maybe the universe). Attached to the terminal is a multi-story shopping mall complete with a food court (including Pizza Hut!) on par with the monuments of consumer gluttony found in every American city. Surprisingly ...

... has a lot more recent history than Peru and so seems to take more pride in its cities. Plus i think they have had a few less earthquakes and quite a lot more money. Out for tea but i still dont have a great appetite. Early to bed so we can get the 7.30 bus up to Banos. At 4am the bloody monks start playing music so that kept me awake for a little while but it was nice not to have to listen to trafiic as with the last few nights.

... We passed through a few other plazas and plazoletas, then walking 5 minutes south through the city centre we reached a river, which was for me a joy to watch. A river with no obstacles can be rather plain. This narrow, shallow river was dotted with about metre-wide stones which would confront the water - the water would find its way over and around, and converge again in a slightly white foam that made the scene quite ...