Cuenca

For our last few days in Ecuador we went to Cuenca, a laid-back colonial town in the south. From there it was only about an hour by bus to Cajas National Park. With an altitude of 3000-4000m, hiking here was a good exercise to get ready for the Cordillera Blanca in Peru. It was our first visit to the beautiful landscapes of the moor-like páramo, a mountainous Andean grassland, dotted with hundreds of lakes and small forests of gnarly Polylepis trees. Loved it on day one when we got almost good weather, liked it a bit less on day two when it didn‘t stop raining and the water from the mossy underground would spill into our shoes. To make a miserable Dorin happy again, we went to the Museo de Sombrero to get him his third panama hat (first got rained on – lost its shape, second one fell into the water within 24h – dissolved…). And we went to the market to taste roasted pig. All was good again