After Pimentel and Chiclayo, we headed to Peru's best beach: Mancora. Mancora has warm waters and great night life. We couldn't stay long but it was well worth the stop. After an amazing 24 hours on the beach, we finally crossed the border to the north into Ecuador. Though we only were in Ecuador a total of 5 days, I saw enough to know it is a place I want to return to one day. The border region between Peru and Ecuador is nothing special, it is even rather ugly, but only a few hours or so driving through the country it because a beautiful green landscape full of banana plantations and lush mountain views. Our destination was Cuecna and the drive from the coast to this mountain city (and back) was in itself worth the trip!
Cuenca is awesome. It is a colonial city in the Andes, nearly the same altitude (8,300ft.) as Ayacucho (9,000ft). However, it couldn't be more different in terms of landscape, architecture and level of development. What really struck me about Cuenca (especially in comparison to my current Andean home) was the level of cleanliness and order to the city. The colonial styles streets and buildings are just gorgeous and the streets are super clean and not full of dust. Cuenca is much bigger and much more developed. I have been told there is a lot of foreign money invested in Cuenca both from foreigners (mostly Americans) settling and retiring in Cuecna as well as remittance money from Ecuadorians living abroad. While in Cuenca, we visited a Lewis and Clark friend, Jaqueline, who told us that an estimated 1 in 10 Ecuadorians live outside Ecuador, mostly in the United States and Spain. On our first day there we actually took a strip to a beautiful small town outside of the city called Chordeleg and were struck by the enormous houses that can be seen lining the countryside. Jaqueline says many of the houses were built remittance money and that many aren't even finished inside or lived in! They are simply symbols of status the dream of one day inhabiting a large, american style home. The views in Cuenca also are breathtaking. The mountains are much greener than in Ayacucho and there are 7 rivers that go through the city! The girls and I basically spent our time in Cuenca exploring the gorgeous city, eating tasty food and visiting a few museums.
One of Cuenca's main attractions are the numerous Panama Hat museums and shops. These straw hats originated in this region and to this day are a prime export. In spanish they are called Paja Toquilla hats because of the straw they are made from but in english we know them as panama hats because they were very popular in the 1920s during the building of the Panama Canal. Hats range in price from $20 to $1000 depending on how finely woven they are. Functionally, these hats are to protect people from the sun, but they have also been a global fashion accessory throughout the last century.
On our last day in Cuenca, Cotty, Cami and took an excursion to Caja National Park about an hour outside of the city. We took a beautiful hike around several alpine lakes at approximately 13,000ft!
Unfortunately, after Cuenca, we had a long journey back to Ayacucho. We broke it up by spending two more nights and one full day in Mancora (more heavenly sun and sand) but still had to spend a total of 36 hours busing back, not including 3 hours at the border. The poor Chileans had another 25 hours on top of all that to get back south!
Overall, it was a wonderful wonderful vacation and I am thrilled we were able to make it happen!!
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