Cuenca

The news today about Ecuador is grim. The flow of drugs to America has destroyed many countries and Ecuador is one of the latest to fall victim to its ravages. I feel sad. It’s a sweet little very beautiful culturally rich country. I hope this is just a blip in their history.

Now back to posting happy pretty pictures which accurately depict my experience. It’s weird how tourism can be largely unaffected by the harsh reality locals live under.

Cuenca is Ecuador’s most beautiful city. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage City towards the southern end of the country up in the highlands. It took us 8 hours on beautiful, mountainous, winding roads to get there at times driving through total cloud cover.

I have wanted to go since my parents visited about 20 years ago. Also, since I try to visit where immigrants I know are from, the first Ecuadorians I knew from Port Chester, all came from around Cuenca.

Cuenca has unusual architecture or at least unusual to me. I’m not sure I fully captured it, but you will see some of the details and colors here.

Cuenca is also where the famous Panama Hats are made. Originally a hat maker produced hats for the workers digging the canal, then the hats were mistakenly named and Ecuador gets no credit for their beautiful products.