And now for something completely different

     Now we are more on the tourist side of our trip. We did a day walking Cuenca and saw some of the sites.

     First in just our neighborhood we found a great deli and a flower shop. We also found where our friend from Olon, Andy Cox, will be working starting next week. He will be the new head of the Cambridge Spanish Teaching School. It is just down the road. 

     Next we walked into the old center of town and stopped by our the office for Grace and Nelson, with whom we have communicated a lot while in Olón as they are lawyers and represent our friend Sandra whose house we stayed in. We worked with them when we ran into any issues. They suggested a great Italian place for dinner. We were greeted by and waited on by the owner. 

     This morning at the ecuador tourism office we got a map of Cuenca that suggested 5 walking tours so we decided to do number 4. It started at the center of the old town at the 'new' cathedral. Very pretty with blue painted domes. The square across the street was full of families, school kids and business people. On the same square is the 'old' cathedral where theybare slowly peeling off years of plain paint to show the old frescos underneath. There was a beautiful attached courtyard with a very nice artisan store. Lumia picked out a purse in which she put her pennies and our map. They had lovely alpaca sweaters that reminded Steph of the finer Icelandic sweaters she has seen. They had them in a rainbow of colors. The scarves, hats and gloves were all very gorgeous. They also featured more of the tagua (vegetarian ivory) jewelry. 

     Then we wandered around old town looking at cool old buildings and made it to the big food market. On the bottom floor was meat, middle floor produce and the top floor were places to eat lunch. The comida a consisted of tiny little kitchens with an island and a bench or a few chairs in front of them where people squeeze together and fill their bellies. I think we need to go by around 1-3 to fully grasp the atmosphere. We walked by a place with a group of old (cute - steph's edit) gentlemen and asked what they were eating. They kindly gave up their seats for Steph and we ate their suggested corn pancakes and yucca cakes with cheese. 

     By now our dogs were tired so we wandered back through town stopping by an artisanal market to check out the goods. Got Lu some ice cream and went grocery shopping and got Cael some Skittles. (Channeling Marshawn?) We got these great little sour fruits, supplies (wine) and dinner then we took a cab home. The kids were tired and crashed. Go see all the great photos.