We took our bikes in their boxes to the central bus station in Guayaquil and got on a bus headed for Cuenca without any issues. We were not regretting the decision to bus to Cuenca one bit when the bus started to head uphill. Cuenca sits at 2500m but we knew there was a 4000m pass to go over beforehand. It was hard to image how high a 4000m pass is from sea level but it was only about 80km of continuous and super steep uphill on the bus - not something we wanted to tackle first up on our bikes.
Cuenca is an incredibly old looking city. It has narrow, one way cobblestone streets lined with whitewashed red-tiled buildings. The streets are immaculately clean, it is hard to spot a single piece of rubbish on the ground. The streets in town are also lined with abogados (lawyers), there are too many to count, one street alone next to our hostal has seven lined up side by side. Our Spanish teacher said not so long ago they stopped all enrolments for law and medicine at the university in Cuenca for five years as the city was saturated in both professions.
It has been pretty cool to be here over Semana Santa (Easter week). As most of the population here are Roman Catholic, the whole town shuts down on Friday and Sunday, with parades and singing around the streets. On Friday we ventured inside the biggest cathedral in town, pretty impressive. No easter eggs or hot cross buns though, instead there are people selling candyfloss, icecreams and other random sweet things outside the church.
In the last couple of days we have done some more in depth planning and studied the elevation profiles from here to Peru. The bikes are loaded and ready to go. The plan is to start at dawn tomorrow and head out of town, can’t wait…
No comments:
Post a Comment