So we spent the day at the beach! Now I'm not normally a beach person but there is a place called Green Eggs and Ham at the Mancora Beach that is FANTASTIC I mean waffles....bacon...hash browns. Seriously thought I'd died and gone to food heaven. (A good start and one that continued throughout the trip). Not only did we have good food but good company as well because we meet up with Alison and Christy, two of my other favorite volunteers! So we spent the day together eating and playing in the sand. I even went so far as to go in the water....I know I know crazy! We collected some very pretty shells and rocks to remember how lovely the beach was.
The next morning we got up early to leave Peru for Ecuador!
So very very exciting to cross that border and get my stamp. YEAH YEAH I HAVE NOW BEEN TO TWO COUNTRIES!!!!!! Although please note how my bag is essentially the size of Sonnet hahahaha. During the trip it was always so funny to people our size difference.
Getting on the bus to Machala was fun but not terribly exciting except for the border crossing. We got to Machala and had lunch in a spiffy place and walked around until our next bus to Cuenca. However because I had given up sweets for Lent (not Catholic but like the practice) so I had to pull out something that had been teasing me in my room for over a week:
I mean can you beat Cadbury Chocolate? I don't think so!
It was very weird to be using the American dollar during our time in Ecuador because when I first got to country everything was well it is X amount in soles but what is that in dollars. This time around it was it is X amount of dollars how many soles is that. After converting it was also like dang!!!!!! that is expensive. I mean they want a whole dollar for a candy bar but in Peru I can get it for a sol which is like 30 cents!! haha oh how the mentality has changed (I can only imagine how I'm gonna feel being back in the States where everything is more than a dollar).
To continue we arrived in Cuenca. Wow! That city is beautiful. I felt like I had stepped back into time with cobbled streets and quaint little stores but with technology and excellent food. Cuenca because it is one of the bigger cities of Ecuador and a favored retirement spot has a wide variety of food and drink. The first night I had coffee and a caesar salad that actually tasted fresh! The next day we went to a couple of museums and churches:
Also we went to breakfast:
The bread in this place was so flakey and wonderful. I ate not one piece but 3. Can you say oink oink
After breakfast we hit up some other museums the best one was about the history of medicine
Breast feed is the best way to go....now that is still a sign you will see here in Peru.
Next we hit up the weavers:
Cuenca was so very beautiful and we spent a lot of time just wandering from place to place. We found a good place for eating and drinking to pass the time until our night bus:
It was wonderful that we both wanted to read and relax during our trip. Because we were on the same level we could sit in the candle light and read as if we were in a Jane Austen book! I mean can you think of anything better! Also, we had Mexican food for dinner and it was the closest thing I've had to the real thing here. We also bought some really good ground coffee. Another wonderful thing about livin down here in the South is all the coffee farms so you know it is rich, fresh, and locally grown! So we left beautiful Cuenca behind and took another overnight bus to Latacunga. Latacunga has a really good super market with lots of American food so we found a slice of heaven hahaha. The city itself we didn't really explore because we had to go out of the city to get to the VOLCANOS!!!!!!
Volcano number 1: Quilotoa
So that was volcano number one and unfortunately I'm out of time so to be continued volcano number 2 and the rest of a kick butt vacation!!!!
