I found Ecuador's Cuenca quite the captivating city and was
seduced to stay an extra day by two Kookaburra's and a gang of
street riders. Cuenca was an important Inca site,
and stones from the Inca ruins built the colonial houses. (Which
explains why there's not much left.)
I took an open air bus ride and crossed the
Tomebamba River which divides the old from the new and climbed a
hill to get a great view of the city.
All that exercise worked up quite the appetitie
but I was in luck.
Expat Australians, Jenny and Chris run the Kookaburra café on
Calle Larga and invited me to come in for a delicious BLTA and flat
white. I walked away with a bag full of brownie and a warm fuzzy
glow, having met two of the world's sparkliest people.
If you like vegetable porn you should check out their website:
http://kookaburracafe.typepad.com/
(Apparently they found a naughty potato too but it got eaten
before they photographed it.)
Next stop was Parque de la
Madre where organiser, Jaime Lopez Novillo leads a city bicycle
ride every Thursday with his puff-ball dog in the front carrier. He
chooses a different spot each week to teach the riders a little
about the history of Cuenca. He believes that cycling is not an
alternative form of transport, it's the original form along with
walking.
I was invited along by Lucy (pictured below) and her husband
Craig who have retired here in Cuenca and also plan on opening a
café soon.
Staying an extra day in Cuenca meant I needed to be on a red-eye
bus to Quito the next day to make my 6am flight to Galapagos on
Saturday. It also meant saying goodbye to the cycle gang I'd been
travelling with for the last fortnight. They were such a good crew,
and we had many laughs but I don't envy the mountain path they are
about to face. We had our final dinner at a sushi restaurant where
finally, Charlie could eat almost everything on the menu. Joy oh
joy, they even had chilled Sav Blanc vino on ice for Enrique and
I.
I couchsurfed with Carol, my cooking buddy and she not only
provided a comfy couch, she got up at 5am with me and cooked me
breakfast. Plus she's given me a life-time supply of ear plugs to
silence any snorers on the Galapagos trip.
Buses and Gringos go hand in hand in South America as it's a
cost-effective way to bounce around this giant continent. So much
so, they have a hot-dog named specially for them!
The view was once again sensational but as often happens at this
altitude, the mist came in. It was quite terrifying flying around
corners at top-speed in a complete white-out but we popped out the
other side 11 hours later in Quito.
Many of the volcanoes here are still active so it's not unusual
to see signs like this as well as directions as to which park to go
to in the event of an erruption.
I'm now waiting at Guayaquil airport after a 4am start and we
have a 4 hour delay while they repair the runway, seems like a good
idea to me! Below is the view coming into Guayaquil and you can see
the whole region is holding its breath under water with all the
flooding.
Today we (fingers crossed) will land on San Cristobal in the
Galapagos for our first of eight days exploring the islands. I'm
travelling with a New Zealand company called Galakiwi and
they have a wicked itinerary lined up for me. Starting with a
downhill mountain bike ride and freshly caught fish for dinner,
I'll try and update the blog every couple of days with news and
photos of this wonder world.