I got up OK and set off for the Bus Terminal. The bus was quite comfortable, and I had plenty of leg room in seat No. 1 behind the driver. The passing scenery was a joy, with a huge contrast in relief. The hills varied from grey sandy peaks covered with tufts of hardy grass, to rounded, cultivated mounds patchworked with fields.
The road and lanes of crops followed the contours along deep valley sides. Indigenous Indians in traditional dress herded black pigs, goats, grubby sheep and cattle along the road. Many of the herders were small children with sticks.
The road was mostly tarmacked, some recent and perfect, but in some places it was little more than a dirt track or dry river bed. There were several stretches of road improvement and road works along the way.
We stopped at a few small towns en route, each with a Wild West town feel. There were also quite a few mashed dogs on the road. At one stage, on a bend, we passed a lorry on it’s side bleeding oil into the road. Farmland was being ploughed in the old traditional way with two hefty oxen pulling the ploughshare.
Finally, we pulled into the modern massive Terminal Terreste of Cuenca. It was hot (23°C) as I walked into town and luckily, I found the El Inca Residential almost straight away. Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos de Cuenca, commonly referred as Cuenca is the capital and largest city of the Azuay Province of Ecuador. Cuenca is located in the highlands of Ecuador at about 2,560 metres above sea level.
The town has a warm, friendly feel and appears to be quite modern. The valleys on the way to Cuenca were really what you would expect to see in Austria or Switzerland in the summertime. I booked into Room 2 at the El Inca Residential for 250 Sucres – can’t be bad!
I went out to recce the town, initially walking through the smelly food market which sold fruit, vegetables and butchered bits of meat including whole cow heads. Another area had all electronic equipment shops and towards the centre were all the new bank buildings and the most impressive churches.
The centre of the city is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its many historical buildings and its historical importance as an agricultural and administrative centre. “The plateau is a place treasured by empires," comments Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera. "The Cañari then Inca and then Spanish occupied the region in the last two millennia, each renaming it in their own language. Now the capital city is called Cuenca and the province Azuay.”
According to studies and archaeological discoveries, the origins of the first inhabitants go back to the year 8060 B.C. in the Cave of Chopsi. They were hunters, hunting everything the Páramo offered them, and nomads, following the animals and seasons. Their culture is represented by tools such as arrows and spears, which have been found throughout the Andean valley. The culture was most present about 5585 B.C.
Later the early indigenous people used the stable climate, fertile soil and abundant water to develop agriculture. They grew potatoes, melloco, chocho, squash and quinoa. They also domesticated animals such as cuys (guinea pigs) and camelids: llamas and alpacas.
I got my bag repaired and reinforced in a small tailors shop and then wandered down to the Rio Tomebamba. Cutting through the city, Rio Tomebamba divides Cuenca cleanly into a residential area on one side, and a historic colonial neighbourhood on the other. Here, as was anywhere where there was any water, there were local Indians doing their laundry.
On the way back I changed up $20 U.S. dollars in a Casa de Cambio where the exchange rate was 399 Sucres to the dollar. This made things even cheaper, so I splashed out on a little red transistor radio for 1,600 Sucres. Now I had music at my fingertips!
Back at the hotel I was settling down to a quiet night when there was a bellow: “Weer are ye, ya English bas?”! Jackie had arrived, complaining about hail and rain en route in addition to the roller coaster nature of the road.
I listened to my new radio while Jackie had a shower and then we went out to get an evening meal. We ate in a non-descript café, but I could only eat half of my churrasco as I was still stuffed with sardines, brown rolls, milk, peanuts and chocolate that I had consumed throughout the afternoon.
By 21:00 hrs. everywhere seemed to be closed so we called it a day and hit the sack.
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