Anyway, I'll start with the Central Bank Museum. While touring a "bank museum" sounds about as interesting as watching the tellers counting the money at closing time, trust me, it's nothing like that at all. There actually is a bank museum in the basement of the building, but that's a far cry from what's really going on inside. However, when we first walked in and began our tour I had that sinking feeling of, "Oh no, not this crap again!". The first floor was filed with a temporary exhibit that somehow was supposed to be themed on eroticism in the Andean culture dating back to 3,500 B.C. While a few of the paintings were interesting, the vast majority of the exhibit had me asking the same question I did yesterday at the Museum of Modern Art, just what the hell is going on in some of these peoples minds? Somehow we managed to get through that fairly quickly and moved to the second floor.
On the second floor there were exhibits galore of various indigenous tribes from throughout Ecuador. Many of the exhibits depicted the various ways of life of each of the tribes. It was truly fascinating, especially the exhibit on the specific Amozonian tribe that maintains their ancient ways even today, despite the efforts of modern day man attempting to exalt their influence on them. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside the building so I can't share the sights with you. I guess you'll just have to come down here and look for yourself. ;)
Once we left the Central Bank Museum, we walked around the corner of the building to see the Incan ruins and find the waffle stand. Well, an hour and half later we finally made it to the waffles we had craved for three days. But the trek to the waffles took us on a journey through the ancient ways of the Incans that was intriguing in it's own way. Hopefully these pictures will pique your interest into reading further on the Pumapungo Archaeological Park.
As you can see in the last picture, we are high on a hill. The living quarters and administrative buildings were built up on the hill and the farming was done on the land in the background down below, which is along side Rio Tomebamba. From up on the hill I was able to shoot some gorgeous pictures of city landmarks and of the Cajas Mountains in the background. Keep in mind you are looking at peaks that rise to over 13,000 feet in elevation.
As we moved down the hillside to the area used by the Incan's for farming, bathing and washing we saw some beautiful plant life, with some especially impressive cacti.
In the last photo you can tell the amount of elevation of the hill where the homes and administrative buildings were built. It was beautiful day in Cuenca, which most are, but one simply can't walk these grounds without feeling a powerful spirit under one's feet.
We started to think about the waffles again, but it was hard to rush through such beauty.
Just when we thought we were there, more interesting creatures showed their magnificent colors.
Then finally, what we had been dreaming of for three days, (three months actually), was finally there in front of us. Waffles de Belgica is owned and operated by a young man from Belgium. His little waffle stand is the #2 ranked "restaurant" in Cuenca on Tripadvisor.com, for good reason!
We both went with the Waffle Completo, which meant we got to choose either strawberries and or bananas, and our choice of ice cream to top our waffle. Jana went with strawberry and vanilla ice cream, I chose strawberry and bananas with vanilla ice cream. I love this bar! Oh, and when we ordered our jugo the waffle extraordinaire's assistant of course squeezed our orange juice straight from the oranges into our glass. You wanna talk fresh?? Take a look a the photos, waffle man is cutting the strawberries and bananas to put on our waffles. Not only is the food prepared to order, the fruit is cut on order.
We waved goodbye to waffle man and headed for the exits. But before we got out of the park, we ran into some more cute little creatures.
They were in the park with their families attending a Felice Cumpleanos party. (Happy Birthday). We think the little girl in the pink dress was the birthday girl, but she was too shy to tell us whether or not she was in fact, the cumpleanos girl or not.
From there, we headed back towards El Centro. To this point in the day, we had about reached sensory overload, as I'm sure you the reader are as well. So, I'll close for now, but know this is only Part One of Day 5 in Cuenca. There's more to come, so stay tuned!
Until next time, ciao, ciao and good night!
P.S. There were many, many more pictures taken that were left out of the above post. To see those and a preview of the photos that will be in Part 2 click here.
P.S. There were many, many more pictures taken that were left out of the above post. To see those and a preview of the photos that will be in Part 2 click here.
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