The lonely planet book guide had good words about Cuenca, so I decided to make it my next destination. The 400 km took me a long time to cover, as I hit dense fog and rain in the mountains. For a while, the visibility was so poor that I was unable to ride at more than 20-30 km/h. The highest pass was a little over 4000 m, which is the highest I've been so far on this trip. The temperature plummeted, and once again I was really glad I had my heated grips and vest, as otherwise I would have been miserable.
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| These fishermen were swarmed by birds, that were hoping to snatch some left overs. |
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| Off the flat lands of the coast, and heading into the mountains again. |
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| At 4000 m in the mountains. Cold and beautiful. |
I made it to Cuenca in the late afternoon, and headed to the center to find a hotel. After riding around for a while, I spotted once place which looked like it could be within my budget. I parked the bike, and went to ask - too expensive. When I walked out of the hotel, there was a guy checking out the DR. He asked me in fluent English about where I was from, where I was going, etc.. It turned out he used to live in Toronto for several years, and was now running a small music shop right around the corner. When I mentioned that I was looking for a place to stay, he proposed me to go to his shop and we would look into it from there.
Once in his shop, he told me to wait for a moment, jumped on his motorcycle and took off. The music shop was sharing the space with a political party's office. There was two older ladies there, and a cute twenty something year old girl. I started chatting with them, and it didn't take long before the older ladies came up with the personal questions: how old are you, are you married, have children, etc.. lol.
About 10-15 minutes later, the guy (forgot his name) came back, and told me he found me a room nearby for 13$ a night. Sweet. As I was leaving, I asked the girl (her name is Caridad) if she would like to join me for dinner or a drink later that evening (I found out she was single, thanks to the older ladies..hehe). She was cool with it, so we agreed to meet later in the evening.
The next day, I walked the city in the morning, and hung out again with Caridad in the afternoon. Couldn't ask for a better opportunity to practice my Spanish. Mihai rolled into town in the evening, completely exhausted from the past few days of partying until the morning in Montanita. I don't think I've seen him this tired yet in the past 4 months we have been travelling together..lol.
A few pics of Cuenca:
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