We were up early for breakfast in “Mi Pan” at 07:30 hrs. and then we went down to investigate the market at Guapondelig y Presidente Cordova. We were disappointed to find a huge concrete hall with only foodstuff and the odd wicker basket on sale.
Geared more for a local clientele, Cuenca’s largest market is held in the Plaza Rotary a few blocks from the beautiful Parque Calderon in the city’s historic centre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors who travel to Ecuador here will find the most vendors of regional clothing and crafts on Thursday. However, we found that the market at Plaza Rotary was a similar let-down with mainly food plus plastic and nylon goods.
We were expecting to see evidence that Cuenca was a major export centre for Panama hats. It is also known for its ikat cloth, similar to tie-dying and batik in which fibres are bundled and dyed before weaving, a popular technique for making shawls and blankets in the Andes. Cuenca is also a place to purchase large straw baskets.
There were a few blankets and carpets on show at the square on General Torres y Jaramillo, but nothing to get excited about. Another two-storey market nearby was busy with a colourful array of edible produce. Upstairs there were cheap eating stalls selling fried potatoes (tatties) and vegetable broth.
A major exporter of blossoms, Cuenca is called the city of flowers, although we didn’t see much evidence of this. So, after a lot of walking about, we failed to find a market dealing in artisan arts, crafts, local traditional clothing or jewellery. We concluded that we should have stayed in bed as the legendary Cuenca market is not what it’s cracked up to be (or wasn’t at this time in history).
Jackie easily got a visa extension at the Migration Office on the corner of the main square, and I returned to my cell in the El Inca Residential Hotel to listen to the radio. Jackie went out to road test his new tyres at 11:30 hrs.
I spent several hours mentally wrestling with the South American Handbook 1988 and a notebook, trying to fit together a loose travel plan for my trip ahead. How far south could I afford to go? It was a big jigsaw puzzle of information, looking up how you could get from A to B and then seeing if it was possible to get from B to C. If it was not possible, then it was back to A to start again.
By 17:00 hrs. the rain had stopped (it had rained from 15:00 hrs. to 17:00 hrs. as usual) and my head was reeling with the logistics of distances and costs. I went out on a shopping sortie, looking for an alarm clock. Jackie found me in an open-fronted shop looking at a huge Chinese-made clock with a bell like a fire alarm on it.
We moved on to another store and after weeding out all the faulty clocks, I found a smallish German (GDR) one for 1,360 Sucres. These days travellers just use their smartphones.
At 18:00 hrs. we went to meet some friends of Jackie at the Hotel Milan. The English couple Rupert and Helen were with us and we joined an American couple and another English couple for our evening meal.
We all went to our “local” which was Balcon Quiteño No.2 at Sangurima 6-49 y Hermano Miguel. Here the food was good and served in massive portions as usual. We then went on to a cake shop for afters, leaving the American and English couples who were going to catch the 22:00 hrs. bus to the Peruvian Border.
We chatted and had a few buns before returning to our hotel at 21:00 hrs. The town was dead, and the hotel toilets were reeking. I was delighted to find that my new clock was keeping good time. The radio was turning out some reasonable music as I relaxed in my room before going to sleep.
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