Cuenca

On Good Friday, after school, I took the bus to Puyo to buy six overnight bus tickets which would take us eight hours away to the city of Cuenca.  Cuenca is more in the south central part of Ecuador and sits at 8,000 feet above sea level.  It's resides in a valley among mountain tops and really boasts of one of the prettiest skylines in all of this country.  Cuenca is clean, big but not too big (like Quito), proud of its heritage, and filled with history.  It's now replaced Banos for me as my most favorite city.  I'm so glad we went.  Yet, as is with everything else that I've put in this blog thus far, there is a story to tell.

When I went to the bus terminal on Friday and asked for tickets for the bus that would depart two days later, the young gentleman there told me that I needn't buy them so early.  I could come back on Sunday morning to purchase them.  To me, coming two days early to assure that we would get six seats had been a wise thing.  And, who wants to travel half an hour away to buy bus tickets on Easter morning?  I'd rather spend the time with my family and enjoy a less rushed time prior to going to church.  So, reluctantly, the man sold me two adult and four children's tickets and asked for my phone number so he could call if there arose any trouble.  I kind of scratched my head and thought, "I bought tickets.  Why would there be any trouble with that?" 

Well, sure enough, on Easter afternoon, a mere eight hours before our bus was to depart at 10pm, the man called us to report that we could have our first four seats but the other two had been sold to someone else.  What???  I was confused.  I reminded him that we bought our tickets (seats 1-6) on the bus before anyone else had.  They had already collected our money and I had the tickets in hand.  After this conversation, he sent in his supervisor who then called to reiterate that we could have four tickets but the other two were sold to someone else.  She did promise however that they would refund our two tickets that they'd sold to someone else.  Seriously.

So, that evening we arrived at the Puyo terminal at 9:40, were refunded our money, and proceeded to take our four front row seats on the bus.  We spent the first two hours shuffling around in many combinations to see what was most comfortable. Selah fell asleep on the backpacks which were resting on the floor so that gave Doug a bit of extra room for a portion of the drive.  For another portion, Doug chose to stand so that his space could be used for the boys.  At 12:20 am we arrived in Macas and many people disembarked.  Hope for two more seats sprang up in Doug's heart.  Several other passengers entered and before we knew it, we were being questioned as to whether we had paid for our seats.  Had we paid for our seats?  Well, as a matter of fact, we paid for six seats and all we got was four.  So, we would not be moving out of these four seats we'd purchased, thank you very much. 

So, off we went and for the next five and a half hours, Doug, Darius and Seth sat in seats 1 and 2, while Jacobey, Selah and I sat in seats 3 and 4. It probably would have not been so bad had it have been a fairly straight road on which we traveled. However, because it was so windy and the bus was careening to the left and to the right with such great frequency, the lurching we did from side to side required that Doug and I tightly hold onto the child that was asleep in our lap. When we finally arrived in Cuenca at 6 am, each of our four kids had had a few hours of sleep; Doug and I had had none and we felt like we'd been hit by a truck.  Not the best way to start a vacation.

Our friend Gary came to collect us from the bus station at 6:50 am and took us to their high-rise apartment building where we found his wife Dena sweetly cooking us a big breakfast complete with a mound of bacon, a bowl of hot, cheesy grits, and two types of fresh fruit.  Heaven!  We scarfed the whole thing and then I excused myself and laid down for the next hour. Our entire Monday was a bit slow because of how we felt but we still managed to see a few sites, do a short hike in the mountains up at 13,000 feet, and have dinner at our friends' favorite Italian restaurant.  It was fabulous to hit the bed that night!

The next three days were filled with touring the city, taking in the more important sites, shopping at stores that had more variety than what we were used to, and eating at restaurants that thrilled our children's taste buds (Subway, KFC, McDonalds).  On our last day in Cuenca we went to a place known for their pancakes and Mexican breakfast tacos.  Oh my!  You've never seen food leave the plate so quickly.  Our friends then took us to the zoo which I can honestly say is now my favorite zoo in all the world.  It should be a place that all zoo designers must visit before creating their own zoo.  The monkeys traveled all over the zoo in these fairly basic wire tubes which were suspended about ten feet above ground.  There were two male and two female full grown lions in the exhibit.  There was a tank full of frogs in various stages of the tadpole-to-frog process. And, one section of the zoo was purposefully burnt and smoldering so as to demonstrate that forest fires kill animals; another section had chopped down trees to make a statement about deforestation.  Fabulous zoo!

That night we went to the free symphony held in the old cathedral and heard an hour and a half of terrific traditional Ecuadorian music played with violins, trumpets, and the full complement of instruments.  It was music to my ears--literally. 

Sadly, when we returned home we noticed that we'd received a number of text messages from our driver who was to pick us up the following morning at 7 am.  He had sent messages letting us know that he would only be able to take us half way.  We'd have to take a bus the rest of the way to make it back to Shell.  Confused by this we texted back reminding him of the commitment that he'd made to us weeks ago.  Nope.  Can't do it, he said.  Something else had come up and he couldn't do both.  He'd only be able to do part of his bargain with us.  When we asked why he thought it was okay to break this commitment with us, he got angry and told us to forget the whole thing. 

So....at eleven pm (once again, eight hours before our departure time) we found ourselves without a ride eight hours in the future.  We brainstormed.  We called everyone we knew and our friends knew.  We finally happened upon one man that wanted to charge us $65 more than the person we had originally hired for the job..........

We'll take it.  Beggars cannot be choosers.  So, at 7:30 in the morning we went downstairs and piled into a small seven passenger car and threw our suitcase on the roof and our backpacks between our legs.  We were grateful then that we had not bought much in Cuenca in the way of groceries or soveniers and that two of our kids were still small.  Off we went and headed down the road.  An hour  and a half into our journey we stopped off at the Incan ruins of Ingapirca.  We stretched our legs, toured the site, downed a bag of Doritos, and then set off further on our journey.  Thankfully the Dramamine worked the whole way so no one vomited on this trip.  Praise the Lord!  And, our driver drove slow enough and clear headed enough to make us feel comfortable. 

So in the end when we arrived back to our house at 6:30 pm, we could say that we'd had a bit of a break from not only school, but from bug bites, rain, snakes, roaches, loud music, a limited menu, and constant begging for the use of our computer. 

Warts and all, this trip was wonderful. 
Thanks for reading. 
Blessings, kim