Cuenca is the new Quito

I knew I had a good feeling about this city even before I arrived. I was right. Everything that I really had expected Quito to be, seems to be in Cuenca. Now, please understand that almost anywhere one goes travelling internationally has a good side to it and Quito is no exception. Big, diverse, physically in a stunning physical place, but it has its busy, crowded and above all smoggy side to it as well.

Cuenca, on the other hand is clean, just dense enough, very colonial and very manageable size- wise. It´s still a city, but one feels one can see a lot and not need to wear oneself out running from place to place. Absolutely the most gorgeous plaza I´ve seen the whole trip is Parque Calderon, in the middle of the colonial Old Town. Tall, beautiful, SHADE PRODUCING trees, beautifully manicured squares within the square, and all in front of the impressive Catedral Neuve.

Left the hotel around 8:30 after breakfast in the very homey but grand lobby, but returned by 10:00 am to shed my jacket. Next intended stop, a few blocks south of the hotel was the Sombrero Museum, where I was to study the illustrious history of the Panama Hat (a misnomer, of course, as it is completely Ecuadorian in origin and most people believe it got the name because so many workers on the canal wore one for shade) and maybe buy one as well.

On the way there bumped into an indoor market, huge as usual, all fruits, vegetables and meat. The meat is all just hanging in the market air, sometimes in slabs sometimes still on the carcass, with no real refrigeration that I could see. The carnes aisles were pretty aromatically intense.

On to headgear and mission accomplished. I got my tight weave hat in a brown shade (I know, not totally traditional but I liked the look.) The museum is just that, a museum of the process and examples of the product, but they also finish off hats there after the early work is done by mostly rural artisans in their homes.

So I got to choose my base piece and watch as it is further shaped, steamed and the band is applied - I even got to choose my band color! While waiting for the final work to be done, I was invited to go upstairs to another part of the museum which was a kind of re-creation of a craftsman´s work space at home, docented by a delightful young man who knew just enough English to answer my questions, of which I had many since I had done my due diligence on these things! We yakked away for about fifteen minutes as he described the way the straw pieces are kept properly moist during weaving (saliva!) and how long it can take to complete a really high quality product (up to 3 or 4 months.)

Finally tried the finished piece on, felt quite please with myself, walked outside and immediately loved the sun protection it offers over the baseball cap I had been wearing up until then. And it may have been my imagination but I did feel that people were paying just a little extra attention to the foppish gringo passing them on the street...

Headed to an indingenous peoples´museum which took me on a path along Rio Tomembamba, which meanders through the southern border of the Old Town, but also led me to discover a whole new neighborhood of cafes, craft stores, funky little side streets, and more. A great discovery which gets me to my latest dilemma.

Tomorrow, another day in Cuenca or head to the coast? My ticket to Guayaquil is for tomorrow at 10 am but it appears I can change it to Friday for free if I go to the AeroGal office (stands for Aero Galapagos - don´t you just love that name? Hi, I´m Aero gal, what´s your name?) across the river. I do like it here and there is undoubtedly more to see, but the trip to Montanita is considerable. Get to the Cuenca airport, fly for an hour, land at Guayaquil, get to the bus station from the airport and then a three and a half hour chicken bus to the Pacific. Don´t know if I want to cram that round trip into too few days.

I will do the right thing and go have a cerveza fria to figure it out. More to come!