Cuenca

Cuenca is a city/town in the very southern part of Ecuador. We had heard so many wonderful things about this colonial city and have wanted to visit it for some time. With some friends, we made plans to visit the city over a long weekend earlier this month. We stayed in a bed and breakfast hostal right in the heart of the colonial part of town and enjoyed walking around seeing the sights which included churches, museums, a reptile zoo and even a rippling river that runs through the city. The town is known for its ceramic pottery, red-tiled roofs and filigree gold & silver jewelry. We didn't buy much but had fun window shopping. We also enjoyed eating ice cream on the large plaza in the center of the city and doing some people-watching!

One of our highlights of the trip was traveling about 2 hours out of town to some Inca ruins. The ruins didn't necessarily compare with the famous ruins in Peru, but were fascinating none-the-less. We were able to walk through the ruins (with no restrictions or roped-off areas like you would find in at a similar site in the US), sit on the walks and even climb up to the Temple of the Sun. The immense size of the stones was amazing and we wondered how they managed to put them into place.

We enjoyed our little get-away weekend knowing that soon trips like this aren't going to be possible for a while once little Baby Arteaga arrives to our home. Thanks to Janine, Richard and Paul for helping to make it a fun weekend!

Hopefully the photos in this post will give you a little taste of a colonial town in Ecuador! I have to run - but will try to post more photos tomorrow!