Cuenca

Hello everybody,

What a fun and exciting weekend our group had in Cuenca, a UNESCO world heritage site a few hours north of Loja. After an exciting and harrowing bus ride we spent an afternoon ziplining and browsing around local crafts and goods markets surrounding the hostel we stayed at. My first experience ziplining was quite the trip as the lines went through cool forest and over some large expanses. Our hostel was located in historical downtown and we had great views of some of the surrounding buildings and markets. Cuenca is most notable for its colonial architecture from the Spanish occupation of the city and is nothing less than spectacular. Many churches of grand proportions dot the city, as well as a number of museums. On Sunday we visited Ingapirca, one of the remaining Incan ruin sites in Ecuador. It does not have the scale of Machu Picchu but was still interesting and a fun trip and there were llamas. Pictures attached are of a few of the churches, and the picture with the Ecuadorian flag was from our hostel.