Cuenca

One 9 hour bus ride later, and we arrived in the city of Cuenca, in the southern highlands of Ecuador. We found a great Hostal (El Capitolio) that is centrally located in the old part of the city, has a kitchen we can use, has HOT water, and even has a washer/dryer. Luxury!!

We woke up the next day to brilliant sunshine and blue skies. We got some groceries, made a little breakfast, did a load of laundry and were off to explore the city by 8:30.  

We went to the amazing Museo de Banco Central and the ruins of Pumapungo.  It is a huge complex that houses information about ancient peoples from this area. It also has exhibitions on many other things varying from the history of money in S America, many of the living tribes of native peoples and their dress and customs, and even some seriously strange modern art exhibits (giant replica of a Brillo box made out of cardboard anyone??)

The exhibits in the museum were very well done. Most of the wording was in Spanish, but we could understand fairly well, and occasionally they had English translations. My favorite exhibit was about the Shuar people who live deep in the Amazon. They have resisted contact with whites and attempts to "modernize" them for centuries. They are also the people who make shrunken heads, and they had 3 or 4 on display. Apparently now they don't do it anymore with human heads and only do the ceremony using sloths and making shrunken sloth heads!

By far the best part was the ruins of Pumapungo, an ancient Incan city that was outside the museum.  It is huge and they have preserved it so, so beautifully!  The city was almost completely abandoned by the time the Spanish arrived, due to infighting among the native people of the area and the Incans.  The Incan empire reached all the way up into northern Ecuador at its height, and this city was built for the birth of one of the sons of the great Incan sun god. It was also used strategically for storage of goods and defense. 

The foundations of the buildings remain (giant stones held together with very little mortar) as well as terraced steps of the huge hill that the city center sat upon. They used terracing in order to have more area for planting and to prevent soil erosion. They were masters of agriculture, and at the bottom of the hill, the museum has planted huge gardens that show the different types of crops they would plant along with many medicinal plants they used. They had herbal medicines for every ailment you can think of - rheumatism, head aches, nausea, diarrhea, plants to get rid of parasites, hallucinogens, anesthetics, even a mixture using Agave to treat syphilis!  

We wondered around these ruins all morning long. You could spend a whole weekend at this museum and not see everything. But we were hungry, so we headed off in search of a good restaurant. We found it in El Moliendo, a Columbian place serving amazing food.

After eating way too much, we rolled back to the hostel and took a little nap. Then we were off again, this time exploring the center of the old city, where there is a beautiful park square and many old churches. We wondered for the afternoon and then found our way to a used book store that sold some English language books. We are both reading about 2 books a week, so we had to stock up again!

Tomorrow our plan is to go out to a national park where there is supposed to be amazing hiking. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and be as beautiful as it was today.