Yo amo Cuenca

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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.

I had an amazing moment on my walk home today. I was walking down Avenida Loja and was incredibly distracted, staring at a beautiful church facade contrasted with a picture perfect sky on my right hand side. I crossed the street to pull out my camera and snap a picture, standing in the same place for a few moments trying to line up the right shot. When I turned around to re-cross the street, there was a picture perfect rainbow streaked across the clouds.
Had I not crossed the street, I’m not sure I would have seen it. A beautiful reminder to keep my eyes open to everything around me.
Here are a smattering of my favorite pictures from the last two days: Mercado 9 de Agusto with it’s fresh Ecuadorian cuisine and amazing selection of fresh fruit, Ecuadorian “shaman” senoras blessing small children, the Mirador de Turi outlook, and a random smattering of beautiful old buildings from our city tour yesterday.

2 thoughts on “Yo amo Cuenca”

  2. Hey Rachel,

    First, I’m actually in Cuenca! I stumbled across your blog today when looking for things to do in Cuenca. I’m hoping to head to the Turi Balcony now for the sunset, but it’s a little overcast and my wife isn’t feeling well, so not sure if we’re going to make it there or not.

    It’s kind of odd that I ran into your blog, given that my place of birth is Boston and I was on of the top DJs in Boston in the early 90s. I moved to NYC in 1996 and haven’t lived there since.

    We are in Cuenca for two months. I agree, it is a fantastic little city. Relatively easy to navigate with lots to do and a ton of great restaurants. It does remind me of Boston is om ways, given that it is a walking city.

    Your photographs are great and yes, rainbows are common here, given the climate and how it rains then gets sunny very quickly. I’ve seen two or three since I’ve been here.

    My wife operates an international education and study abroad/travel organization called, MelibeeGlobal.com. I think given your interest in travel and cross cultural communication, it might be a fun site for you to engage with. We have friends here in Cuenca that operate ElNomad.com and they do cultural immersion experiences.

    There is a growing expat community here. Not sure if you were aware of that. It makes the city a place that I may want to come to one day to start a business. I’d love to open a cafe or hostel here or I can help those who need digital strategy assistance. We’ll see what happens.

    Anyway, keep traveling and showing us the best of the places you’ve been and are going to.

    Ciao!

    Tony

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