Cuenca, Ecuador.

Kara says:

Ecuador. Do we love Ecuador? Hells yes! Love it. Immensely civilised. Taxis are new, normal-sized cars. I was puzzled at first by the funny thing people were doing with their faces when they were serving us, and then i remembered....smiling! Footpaths are level and, well, finished. People rush when they're late. The currency is US dollars which is very odd, especially when everything costs nothing, and does make it feel slightly like another US state.

But anyway. Driving north from Peru towards Ecuador there's a sudden change from dry, dusty desert and clear skies to overcast skies, moist warm tropical air and greenery, loads of greenery. Did you know green has a smell? It does! It smells of chlorophylly goodness. There's lots and lots of banana plantations, bananas as far as the eye can see - all the big companies are here, Fyffes, Bonita, Del Monte (said yes, apparently).

Then we arrived in Cuenca, a lovely colonial town with lots of pretty churches, in the middle of the corpus christi celebrations (which seem to have been going for about a week at this stage all the way up the coast) and party time. The plaza is lined with stalls selling sweets/lollies of every variety, i've never seen so much glucose in one place, every imaginable combination of chocolatey, creamy, sugary, doughnutty, caramely deliciousness. And also, in a cloud of thick bbq smoke, stalls selling dinner, see photo, & photo of me with my gourmet (and actually surprisingly delicious) chicken on a stick. Also they were launching little, flame-powered hot air balloons - sooo pretty with several drifting up to the sky, see photos of one being lit, some drifting skywards, Karl with meat on a stick and balloon in backgroud. And then then main attraction - fireworks. First there was a guy dressed as a cow - but a crazy, homicidal cow. His cow outfit shot fireworks at the crowd (oh what fun, how we laughed)!!! What has this got to do with corpus christi you may ask - my theory is the near-death experiences bring you closer to God. These fireworks bounced and jumped and spun down the street and chased you trying to kill you! And everyone ran away screaming. I still haven't figured out if it's all in fun or if you really would end up with very nasty burns if you didn't manage to keep one step ahead of the firework. I tried to get a photo (for the court case) but ended up hiding behind the trucks with everyone else - see photo, smoke in the background is from the maniacal cow, tall wooden structure is for later fireworks. Then for the finale (one last chance to seriously injure spectators) a tall wooden frame full of fireworks and spinny wheels and a wooden chalice on top (keeping with the theme). Respecting the crowds ability to judge for themselves how close they wished to get to this contraption the fireworks started. See photo. Very exciting. I have to say Riverfire will never be the same again and I can't quite remember what it was i found interesting about fireworks when i wasn't wondering if the next one would be the one to kill me.

Other photos of view of the cathedral and monastery from our hotel - best view ever from a shower, beers in a nice quiet plaza (Ecuador is sooooo civilised). There's a microbrewery on the other side of that plaza, lit up by a shaft of sunlight...., a MICROBREWERY!!! Granted there was only one of their three beers available that night but it was an Irish red ale. A river running throught the town with pleasant prom.