Cuenca, Ecuador

Cuenca is quite a change from the beaches on the coast. It's at elevation and in the heart of Andean culture. It's a lovely city that most people love and it has drawn a lot of expat retirees. We thought about moving here but the weather is a little too cool for us. But it's a great place to visit. We spent a few days here seeing the sites again. A few years ago, we met Nathan and Francois in Vilcabamba and looked them up in Cuenca. He's from the Chicago area and she's from Belgium. They invited us to a party at their place and to a dinner and music show in that visit.

So we looked them up again and had a drink or two and caught up on things. Maybe we'll meet them in Argentina someday? It's on all of our lists of places to go. Besides that, we just sampled some of the fine restaurants in town and I had to get my Almuerzos in. They're the basic set meals at many restaurants and market food stalls. The soups are very hearty and worth the price alone. But with that you get a juice, a main dish, and rice/plantains/potatos for about $3.

We took a morning to go to a balneario, or hot spring bath spa. There are quite a few in the neighboring village of Banos, not to be confused with the much larger hot spring city of the same name. The water was warm, there were Turkish saunas, and a super hot and super cold pool to get the full treatment in. The next day, we went to a lab and got blood draws and ordered some basic tests. It's super cheap here and for about $100 each, we did about 9 or so tests each. We did this because you need prescriptons for many, or can't even get them done unless there's an indication of a problem, like knowing your Vitamin D or A1C levels. Everything checked out OK, especially the Cholesterol, which strangely seem to drop for me here :)

After a couple nights we were raring to go south to Vilcabamba. The eco resort we stay at has a daily shuttle bus that lets us get there a few hours faster for only a few bucks more. We can't wait to get back to the area and have a mini-reunion with friends we were quarantined with during the height of the Covid epidemic.

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