The Oriente and the Colonial South

So, on a whim yesterday, Moira and I decided to leave Puyo/Yana Cocha (don't worry, our time was up), and go to Riobamba. We got in around 7:30 that evening and stayed the night in this not-quite-finished hostel on the edge of town. It's a second branch of another hostel that we tried to go to, but there weren't any rooms available. Anyway, essentially it was like a big mansion with no furniture and would have been totally great to stay in had we not been exhausted. There was a really beautiful kitchen that I only got to use to make oatmeal at six o'clock this morning before Moira and I jumped on yet another bus to Alausí.

We got to Alausí around 9:30 this morning with the intention of taking the train through the Nariz del Diablo (Devil's Nose) loop. It's supposed to be one of the most spectacular sights in Ecuador, but we didn't make it in time for tickets. But, no matter, because we immediately hopped on a bus to Cuenca.

Initially, Moira and I thought we wouldn't have time to come here, but lo and behold, here we are! The bus ride from Alausí was about 4 or 5 hours, which means that we're in for a 10-hour ride on Wednesday night in order to get back to Quito. For those of you who don't know, Moira and I decided to spare ourselves even more hours of bus-riding in favor of flying to Peru. Flying out of Quito meant being able to leave some things at Toni and Rolf's which was incredibly nice of them (and convenient for us). So we fly into Lima on Friday morning. We still don't have tickets to Cuzco, but there are so many flights a day that we figure at worst we'll have to stay overnight in Lima. So that's that.

Anyway, Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador (after Quito and Guayaquil) and it's close to the largest Inca ruins in the country. It's got a really nice old colonial flair, and there's a river that runs along the south edge of town that is supposed to be really beautiful. We're going to spend tomorrow wandering around and going to churches and things (also, maybe, a Panama hat museum!), then head to the ruins at Ingapirca on Tuesday.

In other news, this week involved wholesome family activities such as: wrestling a caiman, capturing an escaped monkey (this was by far the most painful experience at Yana Cocha--that little jerk bit me something fierce...but he's still really cute), having a boa constrictor photo session (boas are the smelliest animals ever--who knew?), eating breakfast while sitting immediately next to a rabid kinkajou in a sack, catching poisonous snakes (we let Manuel take care of that one) and caterpillars, building an epic mud/rock wall next to the kinkajou cage so the little devils can't escape again, and spraying the ocelot with a hose and convincing her that the water was some sort of prey, then laughing at her when we turned the water off and she tried to follow the scent of whatever strange "animal" was taunting her. Ah yes, the joys of the Amazon.

Well, Moira and I are going to go scope out Cuenca for a place to eat on a Sunday night (harder than one might think), so I'll end this post here. Hope all of you are doing well and taking care--we're one half of the way through this adventure! Back in three weeks.