Cuenca

18-28 August

Cuenca is the third biggest city in Ecuador and its 417,000 inhabitants enjoy a similar spring-like climate to Quito (although Cuencanos would say their weather is more consistent than their Northern neighbours). Like Quito, Cuenca is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site on account of its historic centre in which we stayed. Another major claim to fame for Cuenca is its status as the country’s capital of Panama hat manufacture. Ecuador = Panama hats. Confused? Well try this explanation on for size (it’s from the 2009 Lonely Planet’s Ecuador and the Galapagos guidebook):

“For well over a century, Ecuador has endured the world mistakenly crediting another country with its most famous export - the Panama hat… The origin of this misnomer … dates to the 1800s, when Spanish entrepreneurs, quick to recognise the unrivalled quality [of the hats], began exporting them via Panama. During the 19th Century, workers on the Panama Canal used these light and extremely durable hats to protect themselves from the tropical sun and helped solidify the association with Panama.”

During Phil’s quest to buy a 40th birthday panama hat for himself, we visited many shops and found out about the process of making the hats from its beginnings as the paja toquilla straw to the sales showroom with the different grades of finished hat. In Ecuador, Panama hats go for as little as 15USD for the lowest grade of weaving up to about 600USD for a ‘superfino’ hat which (if memory serves) could take the weaver an entire month to finish.

The narrow streets of Old Cuenca are characterised by fast cars and large blue, hideous belching buses. Vehicles would hurtle over dilapidated cobbles and without warning, veer madly onto the other side of the street in a bid to avoid enormous potholes. The council wants to make fixing the streets of the old town a priority but like many places, money is a problem. The streets are lined with an abundance of clothing boutiques, jewellery shops and of course, hat shops as well as restaurants and ice cream stores. Outside, street vendors sell wheel-barrowfuls of mandarins and ‘not ice-cream’. We were never game to try the ‘not ice-cream’ but on several corners, women or young girls had wagons with a tray piled high in a pink and white fluffy, creamy substance. It looked like ice-cream and came in a cone but never melted, hence ‘not ice-cream’.

We took time to savour Cuenca and spent many afternoons wandering the streets of the old town observing its architecture, its abundance of churches and Cuencanos going about their business. Commercially, streets have themes reminiscent of South East Asia, for example, a street is dedicated to selling ornate tombstones and coffins bursting with Catholic imagery. Another street is solely dedicated to selling large sacks of grain and so on. Iconic places in Cuenca that are memorable for us include the flower market, Plaza Calderon with the spectacular new cathedral as well as the hanging buildings of Calle Larga and the Barranco by Rio Tomebamba.

Flower Market

Santo Domingo at night

Interior of Santo Domingo

Cuencanos waiting for church service

Exterior of the 'new' cathedral

Inside the 'new' cathedral

On our third day in Cuenca we found Café Austria - a cosy and attractive place with good food and a lazy atmosphere where you can sit with a coffee and the paper and while away the morning. Later we discovered a trinket market with an abundance of interesting vegetable ivory necklaces.

Outside corner of Plaza Calderon