Click on a photo to enlarge it.
27.12.2019 - 01.01.2020: Cuenca
We did another marathon day on the 27th December to walk along the river, see some ruins, a park and a museum. We found an art gallery selling very colourful pieces made from metal and wood and were very tempted to buy something. But we have no space for such things. If we ever get a house we'll buy some. They were excellent.
We went on a very good 20 minute tour of a hat factory that opened 72 years ago by the grand daughter of the owner. Panama hats have always had the wrong name because they are made in Ecuador!
We tried, again, to get into the Cathedral and Old Cathedral but both were closed. We kept getting the wrong information about opening times! They were closed when we went the following day aswell!! It wasn't until 30th December, after we'd been in Cuenca for a week, that we finally got to see both cathedrals!!
After looking inside the main part we paid $3 to go up a narrow circular staircase with 146 steps to get up to the terrace with great views over the city. There were also information boards about the cathedral. Construction of the "new" cathedral was started in 1885 but wasn't completed until 1967 and remains unfinished. The architect was German but there were problems with the construction and there are no bells in the towers.
I went up to Kirsten whilst she was taking photos and told her the cathedral had the Nobel prize. "What for" she asks ... because it has no bells!! At least she got the joke, no matter how bad it was!! Across the square we went into the "Old" Cathedral that was built in 1568 and used until 1981.
We enjoyed walking around and then went in search of food. It was 2-20pm and one café we went to had already sold out of their Menu del Dia. So we went to Café Austria who still had their menu and it was really good. We sat on a very comfy sofa and had lentil soup, a salad, chicken curry with rice and a really nice juice that turned out to be tomato juice but far better than any tomato juice we know! It was orange! Even better was the dessert - apple strudel with mango slices. Absolutely yummy!!
Our final stop that day was to walk up to an observatory tower for great views over Cuenca and realised that this would be a great place to watch the fireworks for New Years Eve tomorrow.
New Year's Eve started off cloudy with sunny spells so we filled up all of our water tanks. We'll be leaving in two days but the weather forecast didn't look very promising so we took advantage of the dry period to get things done. I walked down to a nearby bakery to stock up because everywhere would be closed on New Year's day but it started raining on my way back and poured down for 2 hours.
We sent various WhatsApps off because Germany celebrated at 6pm our time and England at 7pm. We missed the German new year though because our power went off and it took over an hour to work out the problem. A French RV had plugged into the 220V socket but had used an extra connection plug which was only for 110V!! Result - it tripped the fuse and we all got cut off.
The French weren't there so we went out in the rain with Marc from the Belgian RV to take a look. We tried everything and then just unplugged the French and Umberto the campground owner got the fuse back on. Unfortunately the French returned to find their main plug into their RV had short-circuited and was black. Oops! Hopefully they can fix it.
At least it had stopped raining so we got changed and walked into town at 7-50pm to go for a meal and see if we could find the city firework display at midnight.
Well it turned out to be the weirdest, most unusual New Year's Eve we've ever experienced!! I suppose it was all weird because we had no idea what was going on, why people were celebrating that way and just hadn't been expecting it!
We first realised how different things were here in Ecuador when we encountered 2 men dressed in drag, looking like prostitutes, blocking the traffic on the road into the centre, dancing provocatively and expecting drivers to pay money to get through!!!
Every 20 to 50 metres we encountered various home made puppets with families gathered around, sitting or standing on the pavements. The puppets ranged from comic figures like Mickey Mouse and superman, to gruesome, scarred faces usually seen at Halloween. There were also dinosaurs, the three headed dog from Harry Potter, and other constructions, some of which were attached to the tops or backs of cars driving past us.
In one of the plazas there was a whole scene on display with very large puppets. The theme seemed to be some kind of political satire even though we don't know any of the current Ecuadorian government officials. Truly weird but everyone was happy and posing in front of our camera for us. There were lots of people around including grandparents and children but it wasn't overcrowded. There was plenty of room to walk through.
It took us longer than we thought to get to the Café Austria because of all the photos and videos we were taking. We turned up at 8-45pm but they were still serving food. Good job because the menu of the day was superb!!! Prawn cocktail Ecuadorian style with tomato and onion in a tasty sauce, followed by beef in mushroom sauce with really yummy potato croquettes with cheese in the centre and a side salad.
There would have been wine served with it but we requested a coke for Kirsten and a Maracuya juice for me instead. The dessert was absolutely delicious - a crepe filled with banana, strawberries and vanilla ice cream and cream. Super yummy. Well worth the festive price of $15 each.
At 10-30pm we left to try and walk off some of the calories we'd just thoroughly enjoyed and encountered more men dressed up in women's clothing, stopping traffic and getting money and a great deal more puppets and big displays. The worst was some kind of anti abortion theme. Really horrible!
We had checked out various places along the way for firework watching but, in the end, decided to go back up to the observation tower and viewpoint, passing more families outside their houses with puppets.
The viewpoint turned out to be the perfect spot because there was no city fireworks display. Instead everyone was setting off individual displays so we were surrounded by fireworks, 360 degrees all around us. Some directly in front of or behind us. That's when we finally worked out what the puppets were for. They all had fireworks built inside them and were set alight. It all started well before midnight and was still going on at 1am when we decided to start the long walk back.
The city was covered in thick, smoky air with ash blowing around and an orange glow. Coupled with all the piles of still-burning ash in the streets, it looked like a war zone!! It could have felt threatening had it not been for all the happy, dancing people and families, with lots of loud music and people still eating plate-fulls of food!!
It was almost 2am by the time we got back, exhausted from at least 15km of walking. We stunk of smoke aswell so we had to hang everything out to air. A truly weird but fascinating experience and a very different way of getting into the next decade! HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We spent New Year's Day answering all our WhatsApps, hanging out our smoky clothes to get them aired, working on our website and making a plan for the next part of our journey through Ecuador. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay here but it was now time to move on to the next adventure.
Sightseeing, Christmas and New Year in Cuenca
