I arrived in Cuenca around 1am and managed to find a dismal little room at the Hotel Pichincha. By the next morning, it was clear that I wasn't feeling well and it was more than just fatigue from late-night traveling. I decided to ride out whatever illness I'd come down with in style, so I checked into a posh room ($16!) at the Hostal Colonial, ...

Day of the Dead, The Today Show, and Tomorrow's Hopes Day of the Dead in Cuenca This weekend was fantastic, especially as far as tourist adventures go. Everyone in Cuenca was a foreigner so I didn't feel as singled out as I have on other trips. I got to try some exciting things. One was cuye (guinea pig). The other was the variety of amazing swe...

Solen skiner p* mig, och j*g skiner j*g med! En riktigt fin st*d Cuenc*, den storst* st*den i de sodr* hogl*ndern* (finns iofs b*r* 2) Den *r *ven utsedd till Ecu*dors fin*ste st*d, efter Quito och b*r mycket sp*r efter koloni*listern*. Ig*r s* v*r vi ute p* en d*gsutflykt till En n*tion*lp*rk i n*rhete, C*j*s, det v*r riktigt fint och vi fick n...

hola amigo´s Well cuenca was better than expected! It is the third largest city but you wouldn´t guess. The city is all coblestones and small streets, quite nice and you felt quite safe even though a belgium couple we knew fell for a scam. It involved a man dropping his keys distracting one belgium person, another thursting spanish ads infront o...

Since the Augie group was gone for this entire past weekend, Su-J and I decided to go to Ingapirca together this past Sunday. Ingapirca is an Incan religious center about an hour and a half away from Cuenca. First we drove to Alausi, which is about 3.5 hours from Cuenca, to take a train around the Nariz de Diablo (Devil's Nose). The Devil's Nose...

Saa naaede vi over graensen til Ecuador. Maatte skifte bus, taxi og gaa lidt for at komme til emigrationskontorerne/paskontrol paa begge sider af en meget rodet graenseby. Tog herefter saa langt op i landet vi kunne inden moerkets frembrud. Naaede til Mácala og skyndte os dagen efter videre til Cuenca, Ecuadors 3. stoerste by, hvor vi er nu. Det...

Language skills seem to be one of the things that are hidden deep inside your brain so far down that you need to consciously force yourself to bring them to the forefront. In Cuenca, in Southern Ecuador, we decided to do just that. For one week, and 20 intensive hours, we took up Spanish grammar, verb tenses and conjugations at the Simon Bolivar...

I´ve been in Cuenca now for two days and this comes close to beating Antigua in Guatemala as my favourite colonial spanish town. The place is just beautiful, sat of the bank of a river and packed with old buildings, including church after church. I travelled down from Quito on an over night bus, about a 9 hour journey. But didn´t remember more a...

This week we participated in a community banking workshop(taller) in Cuenca. Each volunteer brought a person from our respective communities and for three days we went through the process of starting up the bank and resolving problems that may arise. I enjoyed it because I work with over 25 community banks. So, getting all that I can out of trai...

Sept 23rd Cuenca. I finally got to see the family that I lived with in 2002. Cuenca, a city of about 500,000 people, is the most beautiful city in the world. It's a center of beautiful architecture, music, people, and just an ambience of pure fun. It's my favorite place in the world, in case you can't tell. The Sanchez's are a great bunch. We sa...