We had no plans beyond leaving Cuenca for somewhere on Tuesday, so we thought we better make some decisions. After doing some checking and a few emails regarding availability, we reserved Tuesday until next Saturday at Izhcayluma Hosteria in the hills about 2 km outside of Vilcabamba, 5 hours south of here. Vilcabamba is in a very relaxed rural valley where people apparently live to great age. It's also become somewhat of an expat hippie haven. Should be interesting. There's a shared van that will leave Cuenca on Tuesday at 1:30 pm and will take us right there for $15 each. Bargain.
Since we knew we would leave Izhcayluma on Saturday, we decided to book a hotel back here in Cuenca for the following 4 nights for Carnaval. We couldn't book this hotel again so we chose the Casa San Rafael, a similar hotel, a couple of blocks away.
That was a lot of work for the day after a birthday so we just wandered around the old town and took it easy for the day. There were some really good buskers playing South American indigena flute music by Parque Calderon so we gave them $1 and listened for quite awhile.
Eventually we got hungry for dinner. We walked about 6 blocks down to Molienda Cafe, a bit of a hole-in-the-wall on a side street. We found it in Lonely Planet. When we got there about 4 pm, it was full of Ecuadorians, no gringos. Arepas (maize pancakes) are a specialty here and they top them with just about anything. We had one order of that topped with fried side pork and another order of a plantain/avocado/bean thing. Great food. With a big beer our total bill was $9. We'll go back.
Afterwards we watched some breakdancers in the park for awhile before we returned to our hotel. The next phase of our trip is taking shape.
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