The City of Cuenca

It is one of the most charming cities you will ever encounter. From the air, the view is of mile after mile of red roofs and four raging mountain rivers running through the heart of the city. Much of Cuenca has retained its old Spanish colonial look with cobblestone streets lined with eucalyptus and palm trees plus buildings that are a photographer’s dream. Never have I seen flowering trees, hedges, bushes and wild shrubs like here. On our block in Cuenca the sides of the street are lined with large trees. The trees have very few leaves but are covered with thousands of purple flowers. They seem to bloom continuously. In place of stone walls many homes have grown impenetrable hedges up to ten feet high that are filled with tiny yellow or red flowers. In the fields and on uninhabited hills, a tough wild bush grows with Forsythia-like yellow flowers that make the hills come alive. On and on it goes. Everywhere you look there are blooming trees or flowers that grow all year long, only lessening during dry spells and increasing during the rains.
The streets and sidewalks are spotlessly clean as teams of green uniformed men and women daily pick up every speck of trash.

Approximately 90% of the roses sold as cut flowers in the US flower shops come from Ecuador. They are grown in the lower valleys around Cuenca and along the narrow valleys between Quito and Otivalo. Many other cut flowers are grown here but it is the wonderful roses that are the most famous. We buy 12-18 long stem roses at our local Supremaxi for just over $2. At the flower markets and the Mercados they are even less expensive. Ecuador is a Catholic country and as such, Cuenca has 53 churches many dating back to the Spanish colonial days. If you are a church tourist, you will not be disappointed. Even though Cuenca has approximately 500,000 people and is the third largest city in Ecuador, it has a small town feel. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t meet at least two or three people I know. Try that in a city of this size in the US. Traffic is a big problem in the city as thousands of busses, taxis, and cars argue over right of way along the many one way streets.
Today, I was at our house in the country which is 15 minutes outside Cuenca via the Autopista. It is an area that is even warmer and drier than Cuenca, a suburb called Challuabamba. The house is for sale but we love to go out there to enjoy the quiet and peaceful countryside. Sitting on the terrace, I was struck once again by the industriousness of the Indigenous Indian people who have so little but make the best of everything. A family of Indians had recently plowed a field next to our house and were planting corn by hand. There were five of them, three women and two men between 25 and 60 years of age. All but the youngest woman wore traditional Indian clothing, velvet skirts and embroidered blouses. The men wore regular attire. All were barefoot and wore hats to protect their heads from the intense sunlight. Two of the men and two of the women were bent over digging with hoes attached to short handles no more than four feet long. The fifth woman broadcast the precious corn seeds into the furrows. It will take them many days to hoe and plant row after row in order to complete sowing seeds on nearly two acres of land. It is a laborious job that would take an American farmer with his tractor and other equipment only hours to complete. At noon, they stopped hoeing and planting and sat down in the dirt to eat rice from plastic bowls. Laughing and talking, they put their tired bodies to rest for a few minutes of a long day.