Cuenca and Vilcabamba, Ecuador

Jan sporting his Cuenca hat with the duena of a factory
see all photos »

Hi everyone,

Time for some serious catchup.  It´s hard to find internet cafes with decent connections!

After Galapagos we headed up through the immense Andean cloud forest to a beautiful city called Cuenca.  Surrounded by mountains and with four rivers, the city is a UNESCO world heritage site.  There are countless churches and a strong Spanish influence leftover from colonial times permeates the city´s architecture.

We spent three days exploring the city.  Full of college students and artists Cuenca is markedly liberal. We were pretty surprised to walk into the national bank and find an art display depicting president Bush as the devil and Ronald McDonald as a skeleton.  Even Condoleeza Rice and Rumsfeld could be found among the images.

Vulcan brandishing his hammer at the head of the blacksmith street
see all photos »

Cuenca is renowned for its many artisans--jewelry makers, blacksmiths, tailors, and perhaps most famously, hat makers.  In fact, the ¨Panama¨ hat actually originated in Cuenca. Back when the Panama canal was built Cuencan hats were ordered in the thousands because of their effectiveness in blocking the sun and keeping the workers cool (hence the misnomer). Jan and I toured a factory and learned that weaving a¨superfina¨hat can actuall take up to 2 to 3 months! We considered buying the cheap version for Jan (only 8 hours of labor) but figured it would get crumpled in our bags.

Yummy yummy. What to try. Will we regret it later?
see all photos »

After 3 days in Cuenca we took a bus to a remote village called Vilcabamba.  The town has become popular among backpackers as a cheap and beautiful nature retreat.  Check out the view from our hostel! It´s also well known for it´s hallucinatory cactus juice but we chose not to partake.  We did a couple of hikes in preparation for the Inca trail and basically relaxed before our journey to Chachapoyas.  That´s when things started to get interesting....