Cuenca, Ecuador - Day 6

Friday, February 11

Today was our last day in Cuenca, Ecuador. I’ll be sad to leave this place — I’ve really enjoying visiting this beautiful city.

This morning, Tory, Aden and I caught up on some schoolwork while Andi made a few phone calls and worked to finalize our travel plans to the Galapagos Islands. At 10:00am, a travel nurse came to our airbnb to administer COVID tests to us. There are quite a few hoops to jump through in order to travel to the Galapagos, one being negative PCR tests within 72-hours of arrival. Even though we needed negative tests to enter into the country of Ecuador and the Galapagos are part of Ecuador, the government still requires negative tests prior to arrival on the islands. Well, that is until today.

We've just learned that the testing requirement has been lifted as of today, but Andi and I still decided to go ahead with our COVID testing appointment. For one, we didn’t want to get pinched at the airport if for some reason we’d misunderstood the information and we’d need negative tests within 72-hours after all. We also felt it was the responsible thing to do since we’d be living on a boat with 20 other people for the next week.

The mobile COVID testing process was slick! I wish they had something like this in the USA. A registered nurse arrived at our airbnb, tested each one of us, and then emailed us our results within three hours. All four tests were negative — wahoo! We are going to the Galapagos!

After our tests were complete, we decided to walk to Cuenca’s city centre for lunch. Our airbnb host has been fantastic — not only are our accommodations super nice, but they’ve been very helpful in providing a solid list of things to do while we’re in Cuenca. Their recommendations are so great, we’ve literally been checking them off the list one after another. Today, Andi and I decided to try the French bistro they recommended which is located behind the New Cathedral church. This area couldn’t be more beautiful! It was the perfect sunny, 60-degree day to sit outside and enjoy lunch on the restaurant’s patio.

Tory figured out the Spanish word for smoothie, so she happily ordered herself a strawberry smoothie and caramel crepe for lunch. Aden ordered a mango smoothie of his own and a Nutella crepe. I had a vegetarian salad topped with roasted eggplant and Andi ordered a chicken sandwich served on a fresh baguette. Our food was delicious and perfectly portioned.

After lunch, we hopped in a taxi to go to the Amaru Zoo in Cuenca. I’d heard very good things about this outdoor zoo that has walking trails in between exhibits. Seeing animals + a chance to be outside and move our legs for the afternoon seemed like a win/win!

It took us about 30 minutes to get to the Amaru Zoo located on the outskirts of Cuenca. Andi expected the taxi ride to cost at least $10 since it took so long, but nope! $4 for a 30-minute ride in traffic. I seriously don’t understand how things can be so cheap here!

Our taxi struggled to drive up the bumpy, dirt road leading to the zoo entrance. That should have been a clue as to what our afternoon had in store for us! Each zoo exhibit was interconnected by dirt trails that were not the easiest to walk along. It seems like there are very few switchbacks on trails in Ecuador — trails go straight up the mountain with very big steps to climb. Said differently, the zoo exhibits were basically built into the hillside and winded through dirt pathways and vegetation to get there.

Being perched on the side of the hill above the city provided beautiful views of Cuenca below. And truthfully, the hiking wasn’t that hard— we just had to take it slow. Since Cuenca is located at 9,000 ft. elevation, it really does affect your ability to breathe while exercising. We got in lots of steps on our two-mile journey through the zoo and saw lots of different animals including exotic birds, snakes, bears, lions, monkeys and llamas.

After the zoo, we collapsed into a cab — phew! — and drove about 20-minutes to the industrial part of Cuenca which is known to have a great street food scene. It was about 5:00pm by now and Andi and I decided we’d make street foods our dinner. There are so many foods we’ve tried and loved here, or foods that we’ve been wanting to try and this seemed like the perfect place to do just that. Restaurants and food stands were selling a variety of Ecuadorian foods including boloñes, tamales, humitas, empanadas, tostadas and fried green plantains stuffed with cheese.

First, Andi and Tory split a grilled corn on the cob called elote. Corn is a popular food in the souther Andes Mountains with the biggest kernels I’ve ever seen. Elote corn is grilled, spread with mayonnaise and then sprinkled with cheese.

Next, the four of us stopped into a small cafe called Isla’s where we ordered one yucca tostada, one tamale, and one fried green plantain stuffed with cheese to share. Cheese is used is many Ecuadorian dishes and the sweet plantain with cheese is one I’ve been so curious about. Honestly, it was a little strange — like eating two foods that didn’t belong together. The plantain by itself was really good, as were the tostada and tamale. Aden didn’t like any of it because they all had cheese in them, so we set off next to find him something to eat.

Aden really wanted wings, but none of us were in the mood to sit down in a restaurant so we opted for skewers of meat instead. For $2, Aden got two skewers of chicken and a bag of steamed potatoes and patacones which we decided to take to go because we were all tired and ready to go home.

We had the hardest time finding a taxi to take us back to our airbnb near the city centre! There were dozens of taxis zooming around, but they were all full of people. Andi and I realized it was 6:30pm on a Friday night and lots of people were probably returning home after work or going out to dinner.

We finally found an empty taxi, but the taxi driver barely spoke any English and didn’t seem to know where our airbnb was located. After many negotiations, Andi convinced the driver to at least get us to the city centre. We figured we could walk the eight blocks home from there. Somewhere along the 15-minute drive, Andi figured out that the hesitancy from the taxi driver was really that he didn’t want to take us across town at this hour of the evening.

Once we got to the city centre, Andi kept asking/insisting the driver continue down the street toward our airbnb. Reluctantly, he drove us the entire way. We could have walked, of course, but it was dark outside by now and probably safest and fastest to be driven home.

It was close to 7:30pm by the time we got back to our airbnb. I packed up all our bags while Aden finished his chicken skewers and then put the kids to bed. Tomorrow morning, we’ll travel to Guayaquil which is the largest city in Ecuador for one night before traveling onto the Galapagos Islands.