Greetings from Cuenca, Ecuador!

This may be a short post as it is about time for bed.  I just don't want too many days to go by without an update. Forgive any spelling mistakes as I am not going to proof this.

Journey to Lima
 I left Portland at 5:31 AM on Saturday.  Regardless of how much I love to travel I do not think I will ever enjoy getting up at 2:45 to go anywhere.  I went from Portland to Houston.  Four hours of airport fun and some pretty good vegie tacos and then I was on my way to Lima.  That flight was between 6 and 7 hours.  There were hundreds of people waiting to go through immigration.  Customs was faster as they waved me on through.  It did not take me too long to find the person who would take me to the driver for the hostal since it was the same man that Moyra and I met two years ago.  Once in the taxi it was a quick 45 minutes through lots of tricky back roads to the Miraflores area of Lima.  GeGe was waiting for me in our cozy room.  We stayed up for awhile catching up.

Lima
I have never really explored Lima. On Sunday GeGe showed me some beautiful parts of the city and the most amazing craft markets.  Luckily I did not have room in my bags for more than a couple of treasures.

Journey to Cuenca
On Monday we took a 5:30 AM taxi to the airport.  We put my heavy bag in storage since it was full of things we would not need until Ayacucho.  We flew in to Guayaquil and then spent a while trying to figure out how we were going to get to Cuenca which was four hours away. Eventually we ended up on a bus.  It was actually a very nice, air conditioned bus which played a Jim Carey movie part of the way.  The scenery was beautiful, green, lush and tropical.  We also went from sea level to around 9000 feet with lots of winding roads.  We arrived in Cuenca last night around 6.  Our hostal is very nice.  Our room is huge with hot water and a bidet (which is always a bonus). The beds are comfy. There was fresh watermelon and fresh papaya juice for breakfast.  No complaints.

Cuenca
GeGe showed me today that I am in lousy shape.  We walked about 6000 miles.  Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador and today I walked around it all at least three times.  OK some of that is not true but let's just say that my hiking boots have offically been broken in for the summer/winter. We have two more days here.  We are not sure what we are going to do yet but I do know it will involve eating some of the roasted bananas sold on the street corners, they smell so good.  OK GeGe is already asleep so I am going to try to attach some pictures and go to sleep.  If this works then the first pictures will be in Lima and the rest from Cuenca.  See my FB page in the next few days for more pics.