Cuenca

Elvis developed a familiar sounding rattle so we stopped at a little mechanic in the hills and he replaced yet another grommet on our front shocks (a new one this time). We were there for nearly an hour and he ended up asking for a whopping $5 to cover it!

The following day as we were cruising down into Cuenca I felt the brakes give a little and then be a little soft so we needed our second mechanic in as many days. Fortunately it was an easy fix as when the rear wheel was taken apart what was left of our brake pad fell out. In this part of the world they don't replace, but rebuild pads like this so the next day we were as good as new again.

Luckily we found a mechanic a few hundred metres down the road from where we were camping for free by the river, and he was a super nice dude. After letting me speak in bad Spanish for an hour he told us in excellent English how he'd studied psychology for a year in the states before running out of money and returning home to run a garage. He couldn't be helpful enough, gave us a discount we hadn't asked for a did a bunch of other work for free.

We spent a few more days around the town of Cuenca. The climate here is an ex-pats paradise so although there wasn't much to do it more than made up for it in the food and drink department. The highlight was a gorgeous fondue that made up for missing out on one for my birthday. There was also a bunch of excellent microbreweries which made a really nice change from all the pilsner style beers you get in Central/South America.

It would be amiss not to mention the amazing Pumapungo archilogical site we camped right at the gate of. It was a large hill complex with an incredible garden full of the foods that they would have grown in pre-conquistadors times plus a great museum. My favourite exhibit was about the jungle tribes that used to shrink the heads of emenies they captured, and they had some amazing exhibits that made me think of that Queen song...

The biggest disappointment was a big constitutional election clashing with the super bowl, which for some reason meant no alcohol sales. I find American football hard enough to watch at the best of times (I normally either fly or go to the cinema, normally alone, when its on) but a dry game would have been unpalatable so we found a Chinese restaurant instead (who bizarrely hadn't got the no booze memo :)Read more