I got up early at Hostal Macondo, ready for their breakfast offerings as soon as the kitchen opened at 7 a.m. The dining area was tiled, bright, and spotless. The following were offered and included in the price of my room: eggs, cereal, juice (today’s juice was watermelon [sandia]), fresh fruit (papaya), homemade cinnamon bread, tea, coffee, and milk. Very good.
I left my laundry at the desk and sat down for a minute in the lobby under a large old glass skylight. A woman of approximately my own age was also there, working on her laptop. We were soon engaged in a bit of conversation.
The woman’s name was Teresa. She was an American from Taos, New Mexico. She’d been staying at the hostal since January, teaching English as a Second Language at a school that was somehow affiliated with Hostal Macondo. (Later, I asked at the desk if the affiliated school needed English teachers: the answer was a resounding ‘yes.’ Just contact them via their website.) She provided me with some information on where I might walk this morning in order to see the city’s notable architecture. Cuenca, like Lima and Quito, has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of its cultural and architectural values.
Street scenes, Cuenca
I started walking south on Calle Tarqui, towards Rio Tomebamba. A couple of blocks from Hostal Macondo I saw the storefront of Casa del Sombrero (Tarqui 6-91), one of the makers of Panama hats for which Cuenca is renowned. An old man stood in the doorway of the shop gesturing for me to come across the street. No, I gestured, I didn’t want to buy a hat. He kept waving at me to cross the street. OK, I would come over, but only to take some pictures.
The old man’s hands were dusty white from something used in the hat-making process. I peeked into the shop where a younger man, perhaps 50 years old, his hands also white, was working to shape a sombrero (hat) to an ancient mold.
It didn’t matter that I still didn’t want to buy a hat. I was soon being guided into another doorway adjacent to the shop that led upstairs. The old man was as affable as he could be, but he did not seem to be able to speak. He could only make guttural sounds. Was this condition the result of years working with toxic materials? Who knows.
We went up the stairs, into a showroom of sorts above the shop down below at street level. Many women’s hats were displayed along with the typical men’s Panamas. Some of the men’s hats retailed for as much as $200. Others seemed to start out at $50 or less.
OK, even if I did want a hat, I wasn’t going to hassle with a wide-brimmed Panama hat all the way from Cuenca, Ecuador, to Wichita, Kansas, for crying out loud. As if he was reading my mind, the old man took a hat, rolled it up and folded it, then shook it out and put it on my head, showing me how the hat could stand up to the abuse of packing and travel and look none-the-worse for wear.
I had started to take a shine to this guy. I learned that the man’s name was Alberto Pulla. He showed me an old airline magazine, American Way, with a picture of himself on its cover. A framed newspaper article about him and his craft was on the wall.
Well, I began to think, let’s just try on a few of these hats. One of them felt just right. Maybe, if I could negotiate an acceptable price, maybe I would buy one. Amicably enough, he agreed to sell me a hat that was marked $50 for a price of $35.
I took a lot of photographs upstairs. Alberto was delighted when I showed them to him, and he indicated that I should send them to him at his e-mail address. Then we went downstairs where his son stopped working, shook my hand, posed with his father, and pointed with pleasure at the images on my camera’s display. Then the son took a picture of me and his father in the shop.
The perfect souvenir of my trip had found me. I left the shop wearing my new hat, feeling as though I had encountered an Ecuadoran treasure, like an ancient cigar maker in Havana.
You could not walk the streets of Cuenca and not be aware of the bakeries that abounded there. And I could not be aware of them and not try some of their delicious pastries. It was impossible to pass them by without pointing at something that looked good and giving it a try. Win-win, I’d say.
I continued down Calle Tarqui until I reached Rio Tomebamba, the river that separates the old city to the north from the rest of this thriving city of 340,000. The river is a rushing stream tumbling over a rocky bed. At least two other rivers of similar size and mountain-stream nature flow through Cuenca.
I turned east and walked past the bustling indoor Mercado 10 de Agusto. The products available there were similar to those in Belen, Peru; but in its size and sensory impact, it made perhaps one-tenth the impression of the great Mercado de Belen.
I stepped into an Internet site a block from Parque Abdon Calderon, the center of old Cuenca. I responded to some e-mail and chipped away at the intimidating backlog of journal entries that needed to be made.
I had allowed time to return to Hostal Macondo to shower and shave, do some semi-final packing, and return to centro Cuenca to catch a guided bus tour that would begin at 11:15 a.m. The tour, operated by a company called Cordova Cadillo Jaime Bolivar, cost $5.
Indigenous woman washing clothes, Rio Tomebamba, Cuenca, Ecuador
Two hours in length, conducted in a semblance of English on a modern, red, ride-on-top bus, the tour was well worth doing for its orientation value. On foot, I would have never gotten to the various rivers in the city, crossed into the new portion of Cuenca, or climbed the hill north of the old city where there was an old church and a fine view of the city spread out below.
Guess who I found riding the tour bus? Mark from Los Angeles, a solo traveler who had been seated next to me on the train ride from Riobamba yesterday. It turns out that he had been one of those passengers taken to a nearby town for medical attention after the train we rode atop hurtled through a fallen tree. Except for his torn jacket, I think Mark was fine, though not overwhelmed by the medical services available in rural Ecuador.
The Old Cathedral, Cuenca
After the bus tour I found that Cuenca’s old cathedral, La Iglesia Del Sagrario, begun in 1557, would not be open for tours or visiting in the afternoon. That presented me a gift of time that I could spend at Cafe Austria (Benigno Malo y Juan Jaramillo), a restaurant that had caught my eye earlier this morning. I had made a mental note to return for a snack if I had time before leaving Cuenca.
Cafe Austria is a great old bistro located a couple of blocks south of Ceuenca’s main square, Parque Calderon. Large windows provided views of the passing street scene. Inside, the impression is of polished wood floors, tables and bar. Muted jazz recordings played in the background, complementing the iconic Herman Leonard black-and-white photos of jazz greats that graced the walls. I was only snacking, but the guacamole and Tostitos—beautifully garnished with tomatoes and parsley—and limonada natural were terrific.
Inside Cafe Austria, Cuenca
I paid my check and started walking towards my hostal. Earlier I had seen some local promotional materials that gave an office address in Cuenca for Continental Airlines. I was dubious: why would Continental staff an office in a city at least 100 miles from the nearest airport that it served? It did, though, and it was staffed by Continental employees. I stepped into the office, only a couple of blocks from my hostal, to confirm that I was indeed listed for tonight’s flight from Guayaquil (GYE) to Houston (IAH), and then on to Wichita tomorrow.
If I’d had my passport and tickets with me, I could have checked-in for the flights and picked up my boarding passes. The agent told me that there were plenty of seats available for the flight out of GYE, so I saw no point in returning for an early check-in.
Back at Hostal Macondo I claimed my left luggage and laundry, and then changed into my traveling clothes. I stuffed my old traveling friend, a wheeled piece of luggage that can convert into a backpack, for what I feared would be its last journey. The zipper on a large exterior compartment had separated on this trip, and now a lengthy section was secured with a series of safety pins and two stout bungee cords that encircled the entire exterior of the bag. Patches from Patagonia (Chile), Peru (2), Bolivia, Argentina, and Italy attest to its international trips. It didn’t look like a new Ecuador patch would be joining the others on this bag.
I took a taxi from the hostal to Terminal Terrestre where I would catch a bus to Guayaquil. I arrived at the bus terminal at 3:10 p.m., found the office for the San Luis line, bought a ticket ($6), boarded the bus, and departed right on time at 3:30 p.m.
I had read that the trip from Cuenca to Guayaquil via Parque Nacional Caja was scenic. I had no idea!
Near Parque Nacional Caja on the highway, Cuenca to Guayaquil
The road climbs out of Cuenca in a northwesterly direction, following a stream at the base of a verdant valley. As we climbed, the terrain opened up, providing grand vistas with each turn of the road. I was reminded of the high country of Glacier National Park. It seemed that we climbed with every meter that we drove. Finally, at 4:40 p.m.—a little more than an hour after we departed Cuenca—we reached the top of the pass (GPS: 02 46.631S / 79 14.537W). My GPS indicated an altitude of 13,616 feet, almost exactly a mile higher than the city of Cuenca, and nearly as high as the highest point in the lower 48 of the United States. The city of Guayaquil, our destination, is situated at sea level and so, from the top of the pass, more than 2-1/2 miles of elevation had to be given back in a relatively short distance.
When we reached the top of the pass from the east, a cloud deck could be seen trapped against the western slope of the mountain range, nearly reaching to the top. We entered the dense fog shortly after beginning our descent. It was 30 minutes before we broke out of it, and we spent an additional 15 minutes in-and- out of clouds. For an hour, then, we were losing altitude, switchback after switchback, mostly in dense fog. None of these factors deterred our driver’s zeal for overtaking slower traffic despite his inability to see beyond his headlights.
The highway on the west side of the mountains was rough in spots. There was evidence of recent slides of mud and rock that must have closed the road for many hours, if not days.
Near the end of our descent the vegetation began to take on a more tropical character. At 6:10 p.m. we had been on the road for two hours 40 minutes. An hour-and-a-half ago we had been at an elevation of 13,616 feet; now we were essentially at sea level, with another hour and 20 minutes of perfectly flat terrain separating us from Guayaquil.
With only a short way to go to the bus terminal in Guayaquil, a young man sat down in the recently vacated seat next to me. We talked a bit. His name was Marcelo, he was from Cuenca, and he was on his way to Guayaquil to take an examination to assess his fluency in English. If he passed the six-hour exam, he would be one step closer to being accepted at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. He was traveling with a pretty young woman, a long-time friend of his named Vivi, who would also take the English fluency test and also hoped to study at Moody.
As we approached Guayaquil’s Terminal Terrestre, Marcelo asked me about my luggage. I thought he just wondered if I traveled light, or was simply making conversation, but he had a more relevant reason to ask: his mother was meeting him and Vivi at the bus terminal and would take me to the airport if I wanted...and if my bag would fit into the car.
Guayaquil’s Terminal Terrestre, by the way, was quite a surprise. It was new, modern and clean, lined with shops and restaurants, more like a suburban mall than a bus terminal, as different from the Quito terminal as night and day. There were actually two adjacent terminals in Guayaquil, one as nice as the other, to serve intra- and inter-city passengers.
Marcelo’s mother, Patricia, met her son and Vivi following a few cell phone calls to coordinate the pick-up. Marcelo’s sister and young nephew, Maria and Santi, were at the terminal as well, and so was a friend, Juan Pablo. There were now seven of us, counting me, and we all piled into Marcelo’s small Chevrolet—Marcelo and I in front, the other five in back.
Vivi was clearly considered one of the family. As with any Ecuadoran family, there was constant cheerful banter after being reunited even though the separation may have only been for a matter of days. We did not go straight to the airport, though. Marcelo had decided that he’d show me a bit of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, before dropping me off.
We drove up to Cerro del Carmen, parked, then walked several flights of stairs to the base of an imposing statue of Christ (Sagrado Corazón de Jesús). An impressive view of the lighted city spread out below rewarded all who—like our group—had climbed the steps.
I took photos of the various family members and friends, and they of me. We got back into the car and drove through downtown Guayaquil on our way to Malecon 2000, the pedestrian promenade along Rio Guayas. As we drove through central Guayaquil we were able to glimpse such prominent landmarks as Parque Bolivar, the Cathedral, and Palacio de Cristal. Marcelo, Vivi and I got out near a lighted monument—La Rotonda—on the malecon, walked over to the river, took some photos, and returned to the car.
Marcelo and Vivi at La Rotonda, Malecon 2000, Guayaquil, Ecuador
Then, and only then, did the group drive me to the airport and let me off with my bags. It was 9:15 p.m. by then, an hour and 45 minutes since the bus from Cuenca had arrived at the bus terminal. What a nice and unexpected experience! Muchas gracias!
I checked-in easily at the Continental ticket counter. There was no problem getting a seat for the flight to IAH. International passengers are required to pay a departure fee of $27.16, making the total cost of my transportation from GYE to ICT $129.48. I couldn’t secure a seat in Business Class, but I did get an exit row seat assignment with its extra legroom, and no one was seated on either side of me, giving me maximum space on the six-hour flight to IAH.
The flight departed right on time, just after midnight of Day 16 of my trip.
Day 16: Guayaquil, Ecuador, to Wichita
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
The overnight flight from Guayaquil to Houston was uneventful. Except for the discouraging sight of two planes departing Houston for Wichita full and without me, there's not so much to report on this last day of the trip. Having spent fully 10 hours in the George H. W. Bush International Airport after a sleepless night of travel, I finally got on a flight to Wichita, arriving to meet Barb and Madi on a beautiful spring evening at about 6 p.m.
There are a few thoughts to record before calling it quits on this journal. Over a period of more than two weeks, with the exception of a few hours spent in airports and on airplanes between Iquitos, Peru, and Quito, Ecuador, I never felt that supposed necessity--air conditioning. During that same two weeks, I never drank out water from a fountain or a tap; never read a newspaper; watched TV only once, three innings of baseball while eating in a bar/restaurant; and made exactly two phone calls. I don't consider that any of these represented a hardship.
I've had time to think about some of my trip's 'bests':
Subscribe to this Site
Comments for "SOUTH AMERICA 2008--Days 15 ...
October, 2007