Santa Ana de los Cuatro Rios de Cuenca is located in the central part of Ecuador.¨
The most colonial city of Ecuador. It is situated 413 km from La Hueca (La Libertad). To get there, you must go to Guayaquil. There are two ways to get there by bus or in vans that are taken at the shopping center called the terminal, just 4 hours away from the Cajas way, which is the fastest way to get there.
The bus from Guayaquil to Cuenca has a value of $ 8 and they leave every hour from the terminal terrestre of Guayaquil and you arrive at the terminal terrestre of Cuenca and if you want the vans, they have a value of $ 12 and you arrive at the center of Cuenca.
In Cuenca we can fin a vaiety of hostels and hotels. Near the Mother’s Park there are good places where you can find hotels according your Budget. In my case I prefered to stay near the downtown in a hostal called Mariscal & Suits, it was a comfortable place and the breakfast was include in the Price.
Cuenca is a lovely city, where you can enjoy walking through its cobbled Street. You can admire its colonial architecture that makes of Cuenca one of the most beautiful cities in Ecuador.
I woke up very early to go to the Mercado October 9 for breakfast, It is a clean market with a variety of places where you can buy fruit, vegetables, meat and different kind of food. A breakfast that consisted of a morocho that is a hot drink made with milk and a dry corn called morocho, I ate some cornmeal and wheat tortillas
Very close of my hotel I found a handicraft market, a place where you can buy different types of handicrafts and handmade objects.
After that I went to Calderon Park, where I could see the cathedral, although I could not go to its domes because it was too early.
Cuenca is characterized by its colonial streets and its beautiful sites such as the Pumapungo Archaeological Park, you can know about this place that was a Cañari settlement, in this park we can observe more than 220 different kinds of medicinal plants and birds that you can watch in this complex. Pumapungo is a park that will teach you that is a good place to learn about the history of Ecuador and its customs.
One of the places that you have to visit is the Tomebamba river where you can find a sidewalk next to the river where you can enjoy the nature. In this place we can find an iconic place callled Puente Roto that is a bridge that was broken for a rising of the river Tomebamba. It took exactly half of the bridge. it is a touristic place where is considere done of the most iconic points of the city.
The walk along the river is one of the most relaxing things that you can do, definitely the union between the nature and the city makes Cuenca a city that never ceases to enchant.
Mobilizing in Cuenca is not so complicated the entire historic center is practically close and you can walk, but one of the things that caught my attention on this trip is that there is no Uber or any othe app for taxis, a taxi driver told me that they are prohibited and official taxis are only authorized to work in Cuenca.
If someone is discovered offering the taxi service receives a strong fine, but if you want a taxi you can download an application called AZUTAXI, where giving a reference the taxi arrives at the place where you are. I think that it was a great idea for taxi drivers to have their own application.
Cuenca absorbs me, it attracts me, Cuenca calls me… but i didn’t have enough time to stay in this beautiful city, I needed to go to other places, El cajas National Park is my next point to visit but I will returned and I will finish my pending stuffs with Santa Ana de los Rios de Cuenca.