New life plan...

So I just got back from going for a run around my neighborhood. You know youre in Ecuador when the scenery for a morning run consists of Iguanas in the middle of the road and men chopping down trees with machetes in the park. But anyway, the Cuenca adventure this weekend was amazing! We left Guayaquil early Friday morning... most of the group was struggling a little since we had a big  birthday bash for our German friend the night before. Leonor made me a bolón to go since I didnt quite make it up and functioning in time for breakfast... One of the guys from Mexico didnt make it up at all... he remained in bed "chuchaki" which is hungover.. and ended up having to meet us the next day. Anyway, we started out the weekend by going to Cajas National Park. It was nice to get back to the mountains again, which are not only beautiful but also arent quite as infested with mosquitos and is a little bit of a break from all the hot weather... The picture above was taken while we were on a hike through the park. The park is a combination of camp grounds, hiking paths, waterfalls, lakes, and nature reserves. The hiking path that we were on is actually part of the old Inca trail that runs all the way up from Cuzco! The story goes that the first car ever owned in Cuenca had to be carried there from Guayaquil on the shoulders of 8 men. It supposively took them about a month on the Inca trail to carry it all the way there since there wasnt enough infrastructure to drive it between cities at the time.
 This enchanted forest was by far my favorite park of the hike. Its hard to capture in pictures but the trees look like something straight out of a movie... I think if you sprinkled in some mystical animals and topped it off with a layer of snow it would have looked just like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe... The trees are all extremely old and the guide followed us around and kept telling us to be nice to them and if we tripped to not grab branches or we would hurt his poor trees... I thought this was a little rediculous given that we were walking in these huge rubber boots on extremely uneven ground, it was impossible not to trip every two seconds. But the boots were nice since we were also walking through streams and small waterfalls... and the ground there in a lot of places is covered in something kind of like moss... so it stays wet at all times.

 After going on the hike we headed over to Cuenca. Turns out the city of Cuenca was named the best place in the world to retire last year... and now I can see why. It is the third largest city in Ecuador after Guayaquil and Quito, with about 400,000 people. Close to 1000 of those are foreign, most of which are of the retirement age. The weather stays moderate all year, the mountains are breathtaking, and everything is cheap! It is also one of the cleanest and safest cities in all of Ecuador!.

Ecuador is also famous for its flower production. In the Sierra (the mountains of Ecuador) most of the crops that are grown are produced for consumption, rather than exporting. However flowers are the big exception. This is just one little stand of what is a huge flower market in Cuenca. There is a similar one in Guayaquil as well. It was right beside a big church so a lot of people come to buy flowers as offerings before they go inside to pray.

Those three blue domes make up part of one of the 17 churches that are in downtown Cuenca. The blue color is supposed to reflect the sky and symbolize closeness with God.

  After walking around on the tour downtown we went over to the main market in the city. There were all sorts of artisan craft stands outside. Cuenca is actually home to the Panama hats, which ironically are not made in p}Panama.  The inside is a huge food market. The meat section was... well it was pretty naueseating... but very interesting. There were cow carcasses lining the aisles and flies everywhere... Upstairs they have what is more or less a food court. Cuenca and the Sierra region as a whole is also famous for Chancho, which is the roast pig that you see in the picture below. Its pretty common to see them selling it on the side of the street like this at lunch time. The ladies that sell it literally just dig in to the pig with their bare hands and slap it on a plate for you with some rice and maybe a few vegatables. Its also really common for them to seel guinea pigs the same way... its between 8 and 15 dollars for a full roasted guinea pig, head and all, depending on the size.

                                                                                  

 I chose not to go the market for lunch and to go to a little restaurant instead thinking I could get some good normal food... The meal started off okay with spinach soup (with popcorn to top it off ofcourse) but then it was followed by this little guy which pretty much grossed me out beyond belief. Since I only started eating fish a few weeks ago lets just say I was less than prepared to transition in to consuming a fish that was still staring at me. But in all the lunch cost $1.30 so I guess I cant expect too much..

We had the rest of the afternoon free to do whatever we wanted. Most people went shopping but I talked a few other people from the group in to going on this zip lining canopy tour with me. The more people we got to go the cheaper it was, so you better believe I was using my persuasive bullying skills. It ended up being a lot of fun though! The zip line course consisted of 7 different lines and lasted about two hours...

The lines zig zagged in between different  mountains and across some little valleys. Each zip line that we went on got progressively longer and faster. They

  also had a tendency to be very bouncey... a few of the guides decided I wasnt nervous enough and started to take it upon themselves to shake the lines up and down as I was going across to make me go faster. haha. Even our program director ended up doing the zip line by the end of the day. She orgininally came just to take pictures because shes terrified of heights... but ended up screaming her lungs out across the valley.

 We spent the rest of that night in Cuenca. I had another little "oh right Im still in a foreign country" moment while we were walking to diner when I got nailed with a water balloon. I was less than pleased. It is tradition to throw water balloons and flour and other objects at people on the streets during the week of Carnaval... but that is not until March... so Im not sure why this weekend it was a popular activity in Cuenca... After getting hit the first time I walked another few blocks down the road and had another one thrown at my feet... quite rude.
Anyway, the next morning we got up and headed over to another little town and toured their market. They had all sorts of crazy fruits and vegatables along with a bunch of live animals for sale... There was everything from dog to guinea pig to cow to chicken to llama... It was kind of weird to watch ladies walk around with Santa Claus style sacks that were actually full of guinea pigs. It also smelled terrible... But after that we went to the Inca ruins called Ingapirca. It was the second most important city in the Inca empire after Cuzco.

What you see in this picture is the outline of partl of the town as well as the temple of the Sun. They used the angles of the sun to tell time. Where the sun illuminated the building changed at different times of the year so that the town people were able to record the equinox and solstice... which allowed them to develop an agricultural calendar. We also saw some cemetaries and

remains and reconstructions of old houses. To make a long story short... this is where you will find me living in 30 years... so everyone is welcome to come visit :) Just kidding! Or at least halfway... Here are a few more pictures...

This is the traditional clothes worn by people in Cuenca. The flowers in their hair are supposed to represent if they are single or not.

This was an action shot of my reaction to my fish with the head still on at lunch... To make things even better I was served another one for lunch the next day, but the second tim I at least got ice cream cake for dessert.

This is one of my favorite buildings in Cuenca. It sits right on the river. It was originally a house but now is part of the University.