Cuenca is beautiful. The most beautiful city in Ecuador, I would venture to say. Very well maintained colonial buildings, situated in an easy to walk downtown... the river seperates the old city from the newer section. Redtiled roofs, cobblestone streets... very reminiscent of Antigua in Guatemala. Although its not any more expensive, there is a noticeable presence of money here. Lawyers offices, tons. Banks, tons. Jewerly stores, boutiques with nice clothing.. tons of shoe stores, with the real deals, not knock offs. And the people here have style, they are proud of their city, and show it.
Staying in El Cafecito, the hotspot. My room is right off the cafe-bar, at least the music is good, could be worse. Its centrally located and I have spent my 2 days here walking around, exploring, reading the newspaper... and finally finding a book to trade and start anew with...
Lots of churches, as you can imagine. I dont have anything very enlightening to say aboout the city, other than its a joy to walk around. Everyone is relaxed, or doing business, school kids are busy being school kids.
It was good to catch up on the news.. I was really concerned about what the oscar nominations and now I can rest soundly knowing what the competition is. The wall business in Mexico just sounds of control, and there are lots of opinion pieces about it. Every day, of course there is also lots of commentary on the trade agreements (TLC), the new president elect of Chile (she seems to have taken the spotlight away from evo morales at the moment), problems in Colombia with the guerillas (what else is knew). And the harvest is starting for rice, corn and soy....
