Second day in Cuenca

Second day in Cuenca

Cuenca, Ecuador, South America

I didn’t do much today, but had a nice relaxing day again. I went into the center and went up the tower in the “New” cathedral. It was not a very good view. It felt like there should be another level that you can climb because the view from the main viewing platform is blocked by the domes on the church and the towers on each side. Oh well, it was still a nice day to walk around town, so I did just that.

I also visited the tourist information office and found out how to get to Cajas National Park, so I’m going to check that out tomorrow. We drove through it very quickly on my way to Cuenca, but I want to see more of it. I got an invitation from Andrea to go to her house and have dinner with her and her mom and sister. It’s so nice to meet such hospitable people when I travel. It really makes the whole experience in a city or town so much better.

I met Andrea at 8:15pm and we walked up to her house. It’s really close to my hostel, like a seven minute walk I would guess. Her house is really nice inside. It’s difficult to tell with a lot of these houses because from the outside, all you can see is high fences and sometimes even barbed wire. They are built like little fortresses, so you really just can’t imagine that they would look like a nice home inside. But this one did.

I met her mom, Susana, and her sister, Paula, and they couldn’t have been nicer. Andrea lived in Australia for eight months, so her english is nearly perfect, so of course her mom and sister haven’t had the same luxury, but they both tried really hard to speak to me in english, which is so nice. We had a great dinner and then we sat and chatted for a while until about 10:30pm. I was going to walk back to my hostel, but Andrea just wouldn’t let me. She said it’s too dangerous, so she called me a taxi. Obviously she has lived here for her whole life, so she knows it a lot better than I do, but I would have felt completely safe walking home here by myself at night. But for someone who is from here, she wasn’t having it. I’ve made it home safely now though, so it’s all good.

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