A Bird’s-eye View of Cuenca

Sunday is a good day to visit the historic heart of Cuenca because it’s quieter: not very many stores open nor so many cars. We decided to take a bus tour starting from the large cathedral square on this pretty morning. It had been a little cooler than normal overnight, about 48 degrees, and had warmed up to 55 around 9:30 a.m. when we departed for downtown. The year-round normals are about 50-55 degrees at night and 65-70 during the day, and it’s partly sunny pretty much every day. When you’re in the sun, it feels quite a bit warmer than 65 because the sun is so direct here.

We arrived in downtown Parque Calderón and bought tickets for the next bus tour to be given in English that would start at 10:30. Until the bus came, we sat on a bench in the park where there were many other people enjoying the morning. Three young people approached us and a young man introduced himself in English as a university student, saying his friend was learning English and could he interview us for his class assignment. We said sure and the second student asked Nathan a few questions about obesity, health, and opinions about health habits as the young woman recorded it on video. The interviewer’s English was much weaker than his friend who had made the introductions. Next, I was interviewed with the same questions. When he was done, I asked them when Ecuadorians start learning English in school, and learned that it’s 4th grade. The young man with really good English was majoring in it at the university, while the interviewer was taking an English class but majoring in accounting.

A few minutes later, Nathan and I got on the tour bus and took seats on the open-air upper deck. As the bus started, we heard the tour guide over the sound system narrating the tour in Spanish first, then in very poor English. I actually understood more of the Spanish descriptions than the English ones, her pronunciation was so bad. Despite that, we enjoyed the trip around the city, which culminated at a high viewpoint called the Mirador de Turi. From here it was easy to see all of Cuenca nestled in the basin between mountains. We could even see Nathan’s apartment building on the other side of the city. He reminded me that my camera could take video, so that’s what I did.

It was difficult to take photos from the bus as we were touring, so I’ve only posted one here: a typical electric pole with a huge mess of wires connected. It must be tough for power company workers to sort them all out!

After the bus tour, we ate lunch at a restaurant Nathan had visited several times when he first moved to Cuenca and stayed in the historical district. It served a mix of international dishes and I had a vegetarian panini sandwich. Then we walked to the hat museum, or Museo del Sombrero, which specialized in showing how the Ecuadorian “Panama” hat was made and had many for sale. I bought one as my trip souvenir. Then we headed back to his apartment, having had enough of being tourists for the day.