Cuenca

Our last blog praised the luxury of our new host country, but we soon realised that all good things have a price. It will be pretty hard to get used to saturday/sunday closed shops again, and to accept a doubling of the price of beer from 1 USD to 2 USD. After seeking, and finally finding our bookstore, we realised that it would not open before Monday. The choice was easy, and we contiued with bus to Cuenca, a larger city further north.

Cuenca, Ecuador

Cuenca is a great city, and starting point for our normal ways of transportation. Our feet are longing for the rocky ground, and our backs just ache to carry the backpacks again. We will therefore do a three day walk in the nearby national park Caja while leaving our bicycles at our hostal. Hostal Perla Cuencana is a charming hostal in the centre of town with a great staff. It tends to be a good idea to avoid hostals that are in the lonely planet, because they try much harder for a lower price. The recently obtained Lonely Planet will be thoroughly read in a Dutch ice cream parlor today (who knew that the Dutch were famous for their ice-cream, except maby Koen?).

Eirik enjoying the great tasting Dutch ice-cream

We are now out of the desert and in the higlands of Ecuador. The temperature is still a stabile 20C, but with a daily shower of rain. With a bit of planning, it does not bother us at all. With reservations to what might be written in the Lonely Planet, we will return to Cuanca after the trek, and continue up north with bikes.

Anita asked for 10cm, and got a bit more. But she is looking great!

It did not taste as good as it looks...

Anita at the Peru/Equador border crossing, smuggling 2kg of water melon