Week 26: In This City

Aside from Cusco, Cuenca in Ecuador was probably the one place I stayed in for the longest. It is a colonial town (surprise surprise) with lots of lovely architecture and seemed like an appealing place to stop for a week or so and learn some (more) Spanish.

One of the main rivers at night

After a day of exploring the town and sorting out some Spanish lessons, I went on the Monday to my first one-on-one class. It was quite interesting to see how my knowledge and use of the language had developed and been influenced by so many different countries and cultures. My teacher sometimes told me things which completely contradicted what I had picked up.

Quaint plaza #714

In the evening I went to a cooking class with 2 other people from my school where we made some sort of well-known regional dish, which I can't actually remember the name of. I used the following day to read up on my notes and have another wander around the city, as there were so many hidden plazas and beautiful buildings. Tuesday night was free salsa classes at the language school, which turned out to be a lot more popular than the cooking class. It was really good fun (as we all know you don't actually have to be good at dancing to enjoy it, much to my advantage), and was topped off by a visit to an almost-pub with its own brews. I had to leave in a bit of a hurry as I was supposed to be meeting a girl from my hostel for dinner. I got stood up. Again.





Thankfully, I decided to do the usual meeting-other-travellers trick and just took a seat in the bar with two girls I had seen around the hostel. Lifesaver. Hannah and the-other-girl-whose-name-I-unfortunately-can't-remember were very welcoming and after a few drinks we all decided to go out to a club. I, as usual, decided I knew the way (I actually did), and we got there pretty safe and sound. It was a fun evening with a lot of impressive casual salsa but a little bit too many creepy South American men. I also bumped into the girl who had stood me up at dinner who, to be fair, did apologise profusely.

The main plaza

The next few days were filled with swimming at the local pool where Hannah and I got chatted up by a rather strange 17-year-old boy who claimed to be a football player, drinks in the bar, lessons and school and after school hot chocolates as well as ice cream. Another of the after school activities I partook in was a visit to a local guinea pig restaurant (yes, my second of the trip). And sorry to tell you this but we did see them on a spit roast. I even took a video. Later in the week after one of my Spanish lessons I went for some private salsa lessons which were fun but also frustrating because when all the attention is on you, it isn't always possible to just breeze through and hope nobody will notice.

A lot of artsy street work going on in Cuenca

One evening Hannah and I did manage to get into a bit of an argument with an ignorant (North) American. Naturally I can barely remember what it was about except that we all knew he was wrong. Unfortunately many of the high number of American expats in Cuenca who see themselves as "free spirits" when they really aren't, fail to educate themselves and many, even after years of living in the country, barely speak a word of Spanish.

Charming buildings

I did meet one nice American though, a girl called Davi from my school, who I was going to visit the national park with but didn't. On my last evening I was lucky enough to bump into her and we went for a delicious ice cream. (Always end on a high note. Ice cream is always a high note.)

Another very important point to mention about Hannah is that she basically convinced me that I needed to go to the Galapagos islands, something I had been telling myself for 6 months I wouldn't do. Anyway I made a few phone calls and...