To Cuenca

We travelled on part of the Pan American Highway today, and saw some of the Avenue of Volcanoes. In Ecuador the Andes is two mountain chains - the east and west mountains. The highway goes through the area between the mountain chains which is relatively flat and high. This is where most of the population lives, and most of the agriculture is done. Many cattle farms in the drier section, temperate fruit trees, and lots of vegetables and corn in the wetter section. And plenty of strange looking Euclypts. Every eucalyptus tree looks strange in Ecuador. They grow only one, but it is grown a lot in the highlands. It is straight and has a very thin trunk. The branches don't spread out. Nonetheless it is instantly identifiable as a Euclypt.

It was the longest road trip we will have and even though we took two shortcuts that took several hours off the trip (these were on unmade roads so they were quite bumpy) it was seven and a half hours.

On the way we stopped at the inca ruins (from memory, the largest in Ecuador). The incas were only in Ecuador for 65 years. They had conquered three major groups, and when the conquistadors came the population was still quite unhappy about them, so they joined with the Spanish. The ruins were hastily built, and were built on an existing site. The local people had worshipped the moon, and the incas worshipped the sun, so the site has a moon temple at one end and a sun temple at the other. The incas used their incredible stone masonry at the sun temple end and didn't spend as much effort on the rest of the site. 

We arrived in Cuenca in the middle of the festival of the dead. Streets were closed and everyone was busy having a party. Cuenca is much richer than the rest of the country, and has beautiful buildings from the Spanish era, squares, and grand avenues. The American retirees are mainly concentrated here.

I've chosen several pictures today (you may say too many). The first is of the volcano that lies behind Banos. It's smoking. The second is not very good, as there was a cloud obscuring part of the mountain, but it is arguably the tallest mountain in the world (if you measure from the centre of the earth rather than from sea level). The third is the oldest church in Ecuador, built by the conquistadors before they had finished conquering Ecuador. The fourth is the inca site from the moon temple, and the last is the oval inca platform of the sun temple.