On the road to Peru via Cuenca and Loja

Trip Start Jun 15, 2008
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Trip End Aug 15, 2008


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Flag of Ecuador  ,
Sunday, July 20, 2008

We have finally arrived in Peru after what seemed to be the longets sequence of buses that has ever been taken. We decided to stop over on the way form Baņos in a town called Cuenca which Imo and I agree was probably our favourite city in Ecuador. Its more compact than Quito with broad, cobbled streets and markets to wander around, cafes to coffee ourselves in and and a beautiful river running through the middle where to locals do their laundry in the evenings. It was also amazingly sunny but not too hot because of the altitude: in other words, pretty perfect. Brig and I have decided that medicine/geography is not for us: we are going to buy and do-up and old balconied house along the river and start the best hostel in Ecuador that the lonely planet can write oh-so enthusiastic and patronising reviews about (one of our favourite past times at the moment is working out which phrase out of about 5 variations the Lonely Planet will use to describe a place). We spent two merry days exploring, as well as venturing into the food market to buy some local ingredients, where we bought ALOT of fruits and vegetables Train Land
Train Land
 . We even bought plantain as I wanted to try my hand at making "patacones" which are a sort of fried banana cake thing (not going to lie, they were pretty yummy though I say so myself)

The only downer about Cuenca is that the Canadian we somehow picked up in Baņos was still with us, who seemed to dislike us for being what he essentially told us was "boring, antisocial and unadventurous" while still requiring an extraordinarily amount of babysitting. As you can maybe tell, I was not a fan. The Canadian episode ended with us practically putting him on a bus as soon as we got to peru (we as good as shoved him through the doors) before spending the rest of the day congratulating ourselves at our cunningness. Sorry if I am sounding mean, but this is a bit of a sore point for me. Anyhoo, we rewarded ourselves with a stay overnight in Piura, our firts town in Peru where we used a health club swimming pool and had some yummy dinner.

We are now in a place called Huanchaco a sea side town in the desert (sounds wierd- it is!), to explore some pre Inca ruins and maybe even have a surfing lesson as apparently the beach here has the longest "left hand point break" (whatever on earth that means!) in the world. Clearly, Brig and I will soon be professionals to rival the likes of some famous surfer that I would name drop if I knew any...

Hope ca va at home

Lots of Love and BBBB xxxxxx
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