We spend three weeks in Cuenca, which is a large Colonial city, though it feels more like a small town. Four rivers converge here, and split the city between the old town, high up on the hill and the new town on the other side of this fast flowing gushing river down in the Barranco. Our house is up in the old town, and we spend three great weeks living here. Jemima and Gabriel are booked in for Spanish lessons at the Simon Bolivar School with Juana and Mark with Sandra. Millie will go a little local pre-school, for the mornings. They all go off happily skipping to school, quite excited by their new found knowledge. My Spanish could probably do with improving, but I would rather take advantage of a few hours on my own and no commitments.
I run around the track in the local park, followed by some exercises on the machines. The park is busy, with school kids in uniforms and teenagers in running kit. There’s a busy get fit feel here. Then I flop in to my usual cafe round the corner for a huge cup of latte . this cafe has the best, most delicious coffee. I easily while away time here with a book or my blog, or just planning the text stage of our journey, which is dependent on fast internet. I am clearly not the first person to think it’s the best cup of coffee in Cuenca! In fact on our trip so far. The place is busy with people coming in to buy it by the kilo, sometimes roasted, sometimes just the green beans, always with a bit of advice thrown in. The coffee is grown in Loja, that’s our next destination, Vilcabamba.
It’s the rainy season here, it rains a lot and is unexpectedly chilly. Our house is unusually characterful, though not cosy or warm. We are missing our Otavalo house with its’ lovely fireplaces. It probably would have originally had several rooms / houses leading on to a courtyard, but the inner courtyard now has a roof over the whole lot, which leaks in multiple places, so saucepans, buckets and cups are catching the drips. It also lacks natural light which always makes me feel a bit claustrophobic. I. think it was probably better in its former days.
We are quite house bound for the first week, as the rain, puts us off venturing out. The river is now running torrentially through the town, which we can hear up here from our house. Fortunately we are now prepared with some lego purchased in NZ – both the pink kind for the girls, which comes with flower pots and pineapples and the spaceship kind which Gabriel has coveted. The pens, paper and paints live permanently on the table and no one is bored, in fact the complete opposite. the kids LOVE home time and NOT being dragged anywhere.
Milk being sold by the bagful in the square
Inside the house . Millie is sitting at the table which would have been the courtyard.
It’s is an easy city to find our way around, with its grid style streets leading away from the main plaza and cathedral. Having the Unesco heritage stamp granted to it, ensures that it is all properly kept, pristine white and beautifully kept, at least on the surface.The two tiered buildings all have wooden balconies and the streets are cobbled. It’s an attractive city, with dozens of churches, their domes competing for sky space.
We discover a lovely old dilapidated hacienda in a green valley just outside Cuenca, The Bella Vista. It’s a half-hours’ taxi ride out of the city. Sebastian runs a great riding centre and lessons, more affordable than anywhere else on earth, so we are going to take full advantage. The children have all taken to riding. Jemima especially, is going through that girly, wanna-have-a-horse, dozens of them in fact, with stables too? Please mummy please, can we? phase. We decide to equip them with lessons, so that we are all a little more in control when we go for our rides. So we hang out here quite a bit. Sebastian runs this outfit and has 48 beautiful horses, a combination of Arab and the less robust South American starter pack horse.They are well kept fed and groomed, so we won’t need to feel like we are breaking their backs when we take them on a hack. In the afternoons local school kids come here to train for their competitive weekend events and there is a real buzz to this place and the kids are mesmerised by the confidence of the other kids. … Oh dear what are we letting ourselves in for!
We rent a car for the weekend, from an American who has a fleet in a car share enterprise and head into Cajas the National Park for a walk. Up up up into the high mountains, into the rain and the cloud, for a wet soggy, boggy walk in what could be Scotland, except its 10,000 feet high and the slightest uphill and we are huffing and puffing with the effects of altitude. The National Park very wisely register you before you set off so that they can clock you back in as still alive when you return. This landscape clouds over very easily and like Scotland would be easy to get lost in. We slip and slide, the children chat the whole way about a city they want to build when we get back home, they design in their heads and get carried away, what materials they will use. It’s going to be quite high tech, by the sound of things. I am not sure how we can make this with junk modelling? Cost and practicalities never enter their equation. Three hours pass, they don’t even notice we’ve been walking, which is not a bad thing. The last time we went for a walk, Millie asked me “What is the point of going for a walk?” I replied by telling her that it’s only on foot, off the beaten track, that you really get to see the real country. Millie’s reply: “Then why don’t we go for a walk in St Margaret’s”?!
Our trainers are now covered with mud, We are covered in mud, and arrive back at the car park and the cafe to check in as ‘still alive’ and warm ourselves up with hot cinnamon chocolates.
Conveniently near Cuenca are the thermal baths at a local village called Banos (not the more famous mountainous town of Banos) where we indulge and warm up for several hours, all the more atmospheric in the rain. The children play Marco Polo and Tiburon in the warm waters with a bunch of local kids, wonderfully oblivious of the torrential rain. Mark and I take it in turns to indulge in the hot steam Turkish bath, where eucalyptus leaves scent the air in this hot steaming room with its gorgeous menthol and we are left feeling cleansed inside and out.
A Cuenca street – El Vado
Five Go Round The World 
Fascinating account of where you are Fi. You write so beautifully. I feel a book coming on after you are back?? Your kids will so appreciate what you are doing in later years and will probably choose walking holidays above any other type!! Much love.
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