Cuenca

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  Cuenca, Ecuador
Saturday, June 2, 2007

Today I am exhausted.  I went out clubbing with a group of people from my hostel last night and didn't get to sleep until almost 5am.  Even with sleeping in until 11am, I'm very, very tired.  I will definitely need a nap before we go anywhere tonight, especially since it sounds like salsa dancing is in the plans.

To rewind a bit, I arrived in Cuenca Thursday evening and went to the hostel that Anna, the Polish girl I met in Baņos, had recommended.  Obviously the people who were there when she had been there had all left since the place was dead.  The only other person I saw in the hostel all night was this one older man (I would guess late 50s to early 60s) who spoke Spanish and spent the entire night coughing and clearing his throat loud enough that I could hear it through the wall between our rooms.  Needless to say, I decided to switch to a different hostel.  Hostel #2, Verde Limon, is much, much better and more social.  I've also had all sorts of random connections there.  There are a group of 5 girls who went to high school together in Madison, WI and are now traveling together through Ecuador for a month after one of them just finished a study abroad in Quito.  There's also a guy there who is from Oakland and used to live about 15 blocks from me.  He also quit his job to travel, only he's traveling by motorcycle.  He started out heading through Mexico and Central America and has now been in Ecuador for 2.5 months, mostly based in Cuenca working at the hostel in exchange for a free bed.  All sorts of randomness.

I really like the city of Cuenca.  I've spent some time exploring during the last couple of days and it's much cleaner with a much friendlier feel than Quito.  Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador, behind Quito and Guayaquil.  It's also much safer than the other two.  Here it's not dangerous to walk around at night, whereas in Quito everyone is warned numerous times to always take cabs because muggings are commonplace.  Cuenca's architecture is mostly colonial, which many people say makes it feel more European than Ecuadorian.  It also doesn't have the same outward appearance of poverty that I've seen everywhere else in Ecuador.  There are still some beggars and children trying to sell things, but it's not on every single street-corner as it is in Quito.

I'm not sure exactly how long I'll stay in Cuenca.  Right now I'm thinking of leaving Tuesday or Wednesday to head to Welcomes via Lola, but northing's set in stone.

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