I didn’t like, let alone love, Quito. It reminded me of a South American version of Los Angeles — gigantic, ugly, and smoggy, filled with fast food and inefficient public transportation. The city is also incredibly unsafe, and the school I was studying at was completely unorganized, so although I really loved my host family, I was ready to move on.

tourist pic!

Cuenca, on the other hand, is gorgeous, and I’ve completely fallen in love with this city. After less than 48 hours here, I understand why so many gringas decide to settle down in the city, and why the locals never leave. Surrounded by beautiful mountains, Cuenca is full of gorgeous churches, plazas filled with indigenous senoras selling flowers and fresh fruit, and incredibly old buildings that are falling apart in that beautiful, third world type of way, if that makes any sense at all. At first glance, not everything looks so charming, but there really is beauty everywhere here — in the balcony railings, the wild flowers growing in the cracks of the sidewalk, and the colorful graffiti.

The weather in Cuenca is relatively predictable this time of year: it’s perfectly sunny every morning, and without fail it rains every afternoon. If you’re lucky, like we were today, the sky clears up by 3 or 4 PM and the day ends with a gorgeous, cloud scattered sky to gawk at.