Cruising in Cuenca

     As we arrived for our three night stay in Cuenca, we first made a stop at the Inca Ruins. The Inca ruins are a important historic place in Ecuador.  The history behind Ecuador from which we've learned a lot from Willie. He has always stressed the three time periods of Ecuador, pre-Inca, Inca and colonial time periods. So stopping at the Ingapirca was a historic sight in Ecuador. We were able to learn a lot what life was like for them. Many walls of the city were still there but it was picked over when the ruins were first discovered because of the amounts of gold and other valuables they had left.

    After this we continued on our journey to our next major city of Cuenca. This is where we spent three nights at and had our first free day to explore on our own. It was a nice break as we've often been busy with class or traveling the last few days. When we first arrived we ate dinner at our hotel and then most of us just hung out together and got rested up. The next day was very busy. This was our free day! A group of us went out exploring through the town. Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador so there was a lot to explore. We started by heading down towards the river and just taking in all of the sights. Some of the guys had bought a football earlier so we stopped at a park so they could toss around the pigskin. The girls all went to go swing but were shortly caught because we weren't 12 years or younger. What rebellions we were!

      Then we all went to lunch and hung out a little bit more before the long awaited match was going to occur. Us gringos wanted to play soccer! My friend, Sara and I bought jerseys for the game which was really funny. Out of the 26 people in our group about 18 of us played including Willie our guide and Reuben our bus driver. I was pretty proud of myself as I scored two goals and was on the winning team! On our way back we continued the fun by making our `bus a party bus. We were all jamming out and dancing. Then we took a little time to get ready then all went and had a very nice dinner together. Post-dinner we did the long-awaited trip to the karaoke bar. This was great because we all were able to sit on top of the loft and control our own music. Don't worry Aaron Carter was sang. 

     We called it a little bit of an early night because we had a early day.  The next day we again began with a hike. This time it took place in El Cajas National Park. The beautiful views we've been seeing are just hard to capture with a picture. A lot of where we have been are in the Andes which was formed out of volcanic ruins so the vegetation, terrian, and animals is just so unique. After about our three hour hike we returned to the hotel to begin to prepare ourselves for our dinner of delicacy. We left the hotel to go to our the restuarant in which we watch our guniea pig be cooked.This type of meet here is a delicacy that we were able to try. It was pretty good for it being a guinea pig but it was definately one thing that you just had to try to say you tried it.

      Today we are on our last big travel day as we are heading to Guayquil the most populated city in Ecuador. It is basically our last day on the mainland of Ecuador before we head to the long awaited Galápagos Islands. We are really excited for both warmer weather and the adventures it will bring. Howeverr, we are said to leaving our guide Willie as he will return to Quito where he will pick us up when we are our journey home.