So, lots of photos in today's post. Louise took us downtown again, and we visited the central market, the hat museum, went to the cathedral, went for lunch, then the Pumapungo Inca Museum.
Here we go...
Hats for sale in the central market!
Big variety of medicinal herbs.
Ruth took this photo.
The guy looks really pissed off at Ruth taking the photo, but he wasn't at all. He was happy and smiling seconds later. The dog of course only has one thing on its mind. Getting a treat from the butcher!
The egg ladies!
Local clothing.
Next stop was the hat museum.
They manufacture hats here as well.
Tightly woven by hand, some of these hats cost hundreds of dollars.
Hats for sale.
Demonstrating how they form them.
You can have your hat custom made.
They have a patio out back with views of the city.
They had a display of some odd hats.
Hm. Okay.
A mask and a hat at the same time.
Of course we had to try on some of the ones for sale.
For the Sat Wars fans.
How about this one?
They have a separate room for expensive hats.
Then we went to a huge tourist trinket shop.
Ruth and I climbed the two hundred and something stairs of the cathedral tower while Louise went for a coffee.
They are doing construction in the plaza in front of the cathedral.
Cuenca.
Church domes.
The cathedral was never completed.
This is the way it was supposed to look.
Massive front entrance doors!
Courtyard beside the cathedral.
Chocolate treats shop with an old 70's Cadillac Convertible.
Scenery along the way.
An old pharmacy, still operating.
This fancy old home was turned into a clothing store.
The cathedral.
Another mural.
From there, we said goodbye to Louise and Ruth and I headed to the Inca ruins site and museum that exists right in the city. Cuenca has been occupied by humans for at least 4,000 years, and possibly longer. The Inca empire was the most recent, and existed around the 1400's in this area. The Spanish arrived in 1557.
Weird tree.
The museum and grounds were totally free.
We zipped though the broken pottery section quite quickly.
You can only look at so much broken pottery!
There really isn't much left in the way of ruins.
Nice views from the site though.
Some kind of cistern?
There were two different ones side by side.
There is a bird sanctuary on the property as well.
They have a working garden designed the way the Incas did things.
Ancient canal.
The Inca site of Pumapungo.
Sky looks not bad, but a half an hour later it was pouring with rain!
Inca warrior.
We went and looked at the birds.
They were all either injured and can't fend for themselves, or rescued from traffickers.
We went back into the museum and went to the second floor which was really well done.
They even had a section with authentic shrunken heads from the Ecuadorian Amazon!
And then we walked back to the house. A decent day with 16,500 steps.
And more steps today. The weather looks better, and Mike has taken off on his motorbike with some friends. Louise is getting ready to start packing because they are moving next month. And we are heading out for an actual hike up a nearby mountain!
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Good deal on this KitchenAid 4.5 Quart Stand Mixer.
And in Canada...
Looks like a great day. The shrunken heads look amazing.
ReplyDeleteIt was a good day and we certainly saw a lot more of the downtown area on this second visit than we did the day before.
DeleteThe shrunken heads were amazing, we just wished that they had a display board that explained what the process was in making the heads small like that.
Do you think the expats have contributed to the stable life in Cuenca??
ReplyDeleteWe honestly can't give you an answer on that, as we don't know what the city was like or what it would have been like without them being there.
DeleteThank you for so many photos to remind us of our wonderful visit there some years ago. Jerry got a Panama hat and it survives travel very well.
ReplyDeleteWe are glad that you enjoyed all the pictures and that they were able to remind you of your visit here. It is good to hear that the Panama hats hold up well to travel. We were almost tempted to buy one ourselves but decided that we probably wouldn't wear it enough.
DeleteIt is very rude to take and publish peoples pictures without permission. It's also an invasion of privacy. You first to need to ask permission and then say gracias plus a tip.
ReplyDeleteWe have traveled all over the world and whenever we take close up pictures of people we always ask them. As for a tip we have never been asked for one nor has it ever been expected but we always say thank you to them in whatever the language is of that particular country.
DeleteThese are among the very best views within Centro Historico. Great walking town! Great pictures.
ReplyDeleteThank you, we are glad that you enjoyed the post and the pictures the historical center of town. We really enjoyed our day wandering around the area and there is still more that we could have seen. Definitely a very walkable city.
DeleteGreat photos and you visited a lot of places.
ReplyDeleteThank you and yes, we certainly saw a lof of the downtown area and got a lot of variety in the place that we saw.
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