Purplelake: Day 11 - Aug 3, 2018 Cuenca, Ecuador

Cuenca sits at around 2200m above sea level in the Andes mountains. Since it is surrounded by mountains, its climate, like Quito, is highly unpredictable and subjected to the micro-climates created by the high mountains. We were initially terrified by the weather forecast before we arrived. Everyday the forecast was rain, rain, and more rain! These were totally discarded by the locals who really do not even watch weather forecast. And I must say that the locals are right! Since we were here, the days would start sunny with a few clouds. As the day progressed, it would become more cloudy. At times, it would appear it's going to rain but then the clouds would start to disappear, followed by sunshine. By nighttime, the sky would become cloudy. The day time temperatures were around 20-22C and after sunset, the temperature would drop to around 12-14C. On the streets, I seemed to be the only one wearing shorts! Everyone seemed to carry a sweater or jacket.

We had decided to stay several days in Cuenca because of its reputation as one of the top cities in the world for retirement. Our second day here started with a walk to the central plaza to visit the main cathedral. The Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepcion has three giant blue domes that dominates the Cuenca skylines. Its inside is huge and decorated with beautiful stained glasses. It must be one of the biggest cathedrals in South America, if not the biggest! Construction of the cathedral started in 1885 by the local town when the old cathedral was too small to hold the crowds. The old cathedral, sitting directly opposite the plaza, is now a museum after being restored from years of neglect. There is a small scale model of the new cathedral there on display.

Walking south from the main plaza took us to one of several small rivers that cut across Cuenca, Rio Tomebamba. There is a pleasant pedestrian path along the river with flowering trees and shrubs that leads to parks and even a bridge that goes nowhere. We saw local children practicing gymnastics using ribbons hanging off the bridge. At the end of the path, we entered the garden of Museo Pumapungo which is a national museum partly built to display the artifacts excavated from the nearby Inca settlement ruins of Pumapungo. The whole site was restored to showcase how this Inca village would look like in the past so there was a big garden of various crops and food staple plants like corn and tomatoes. There was even an aviary with many bird species like parrots and macaws! Several llamas lazily grazing on the pasture made this a picture perfect setting with the deep blue sky. The museum itself was very interesting although sadly not much was in English. We could still figure out that Pumapungo was a significant archaeological find with tons of artifacts and structures uncovered. The second and third floors of the museum were dedicated to different regions that made up Ecuador all the way from the Pacific coast to the high Andes to the Amazon jungles. There was even a special section (with English translation) dedicated to the Amazon tribe who practiced head-hunting literally and shrank the heads to wear on their necks! Too bad no picture was allowed in the museum.