Today was Anita's birthday so the first thing we had to do was figure out where we'd have dinner. When we get to a new town, we often check out restaurants from our guide books. Not only does this allow us to make informed eating decisions, but it often gives us a chance to orient ourselves so we know how to find lots of other tourist attractions too.
Our hotel is beautiful with refinished wood floors and beams and attractive wood trim. We have room #12 which is the only room on the 3rd floor and one of only two rooms with windows to the outside. The windows in the other rooms look out onto the lobby or interior balcony. Sometimes this is the only way to organize the rooms in older buildings downtown. We've seen this in lots of other places in the world. However, we have 2 windows with a view of the roof. Not much of a view but at least we get light and air. Our room is great - new, nice bathroom, big shower and lots of room. The hotel breakfast is quite nice as well. The Forum is an odd name but it's a great little hotel.
At breakfast we chatted with 3 American girls from New York. As it turns out, they are also Jehovah's Witnesses. We discovered that 30,000 Jehovah's Witnesses from around the world had attended a world conference in Quito a couple of weeks ago. Some have stayed on to tour around Ecuador. That's why we've been meeting them everywhere. There aren't usually this many Jehovah's Witnesses in Ecuador. We knew there had been a conference but we hadn't realized it was this big.
We walked a couple of blocks to Parque Calderon, the main plaza. Very soon, we realized that the old part of Cuenca is a much, much nicer colonial town than the old part of Quito. The Parque is beautiful and has old buildings, including 2 cathedrals surrounding it. The new cathedral, built around 1885, is quite large, with a few big ceramic tile covered domes. The belfries look a little short and in fact they were not built to the full planned height because the builders realized that the building couldn't support the weight. Blame another bunch of engineers who were drunk all through university, I expect.
We walked around the old town, finding the restaurants and figuring out where we would wander over the coming few days. Eventually we went back to Parque Calderon in search of Don Colon's restaurant. It isn't in our books but was recommended by an American couple we met in Quito. Don Colon himself was standing outside. He's an older Ecuadorian who lived most of his life in the US and has a home in Naples Florida. We decided that we'd come back later for dinner.
It was time for a little relaxation and happy hour in our hotel room. Later, we walked back to Don Colon's for beef tenderloin and shrimp fettucine, wine and beer. Delicious. Don Colon came back in for the evening shift. When we saw us, knowing that it was Anita's birthday, he ordered another free wine and beer for us and sat down to chat. Nice fellow. Our bill was a little higher than normal but $30 is still pretty reasonable for a great birthday dinner.
After dinner, we sat in Parque Calderon for awhile. There was a group of students protesting eating meat but they were very peaceful and polite. They just held up their signs and banners. Vegetarians don't usually get too rabid. Having just eaten steak, we didn't join in.
Sitting in the park at night is really pleasant. Cuenca seems very safe and it's very pretty. We like it a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment