Cuenca, our last stop in Ecuador

After another slightly hellish busride of awful salsa music and tedious inappropriate movies, from Montanita to Guayaquil, Guayaquil to Cuenca, we settled ourselves in probably the nicest hostel we've been to yet; Alternative Hostel, just on the outskirts of the centre of Cuenca. It's spotlessly clean, has a perfectly equipped kitchen where things don't appear to have year-old grime coating everything, a nice TV lounge area and a sunny terrace where you can chill or have brekkie, whatever. The only drawback is the room, which felt kind of dungeony cos the only window looked out over the kitchen and not the outside, but was spared darkness by a skylight nearby which let us guage how sunny or rainy it was that day! The hot water, the GLORIOUS hot water showers made up for any qualms I had about the room.

We hopped up the next morning as the sun was beaming through the afore-mentioned skylight, so we decided to make the most of the day. Armed with a touristy map, we spent the whole day rambling about this lovely city, it's all churches and parks, and walks by the riverside - very Teletubby-ish and picturesque. It's nestled quaintly among the mountains and the semi-cloudy skies made for some nice sunsets in the evening - if only I had the watercolours to hand!

Cuenca Cathedral

As Cuenca is good for the ol' English speaking (due to large amount of foreign students here), we figured we'd use this chance to go see James Bond Skyfall in the cinema in English, all be it with Spanish subtitles. Wading our way through the scores of giddy teenagers scrambling to see the latest Twilight installment, we got to the ticket desk only to disover that the movie was shown only in Spanish, and not in English as advertised on their website. Nuts. We tried another cinema nearby only to discover the same problem, and thus wasted $6 in the process.

After we got over this hardship, the next day, being another sunny day but in fact a Sunday, meaning very little was open, we enquired in the tourist office about what there was to do locally and we were recommended the thermal baths in the nearby parish of Banos (another Banos!). as we're quite the fans of some hot baths, we said, "why not?", so we hopped on a bus next to some lady carrying a bag of chickens and paid $2.75 to spend the day in the baths and soaking up the rays. I say thermal baths but I mean more jsut milky-coloured swimming pool really, but it was a nice way to spend a sunny day.

Banos thermal pools

Tomorrow it's on to Peru, wohoo! excited about exploring a new country but sad to leave Ecuador as we've loved it all. our next stop is Mancora, back to seaside loveliness and hopefully some more reliable weather than Ecuador!

Where we stayed; Alternative Hostel http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Alternative-Hostels/Cuenca/54694?source=googleadwordshostelsbyname&kid=688645&aid=2&gclid=CJH7w-7X47MCFQkFnQodCzEAxw
How much?; $9 per person per night, double room. shared bathroom