We stayed at the Hotel Victoria, which was just lovely. Our room looked down toward the river. We arrived around lunch time, and started the day by just wandering around to see some of the city. We went down to the river, and then up to the Iglesia San Blas plaza. Lunch was a delicious arepa from a Colombia restaurant called Moliendo Cafe. After lunch, we walked up to the main square, Parque Calderon, to see the Cathedral and other historic buildings. Then we just sort of ambled, with ice cream and shopping and so many people bustling about.
On our second day, we rode out to Ingapirca, the remains of an Incan city situated on top of an older Canari city. The guide gave a great tour of the excavated ruins, highlighting the two temples there. It was definitely not as elaborate as Machu Picchu, but it was older and very cool to see some of the outlying sections of the Incan Empire after being in the center in Peru a decade ago. We managed to get our tour in between rain storms, which was pretty fortunate. It was a rather grey day. After returning to Cuenca, we explored a new area, further west from where we were staying. There was some pretty art along the walk. We ended the day at the Anthropological Museum, studying some of the artifacts that had been found in the local area. It was small but arranged well, with good information about the collection.
Day three was more museums- we went to the Museo Pumapungo, which is set above ruins of another Canari village. I loved the ethnographic exhibits at the museum. For lunch, we went upstairs at the Mercado 3 November to get giant plates of pork and salad. SO GOOD. Since our flight was late, we really just wandered around the city for the day, a little shopping, a little food, a lot of coffee.
Cuenca was cute and historical. It was my friend's favorite part of Ecuador. It wasn't super exciting, but I liked it for a slower pace for a few days.
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