From Loja to Cuenca

Arrived in Cuenca yesterday evening, after spending four nights in the really cheap 'Londres' hotel in Loja ($10 per night, about £6.70 for two people). Loja is a really nice small city in the Southern part of the Ecuadorian Andes. It has a great climate, being at a lower altitude than the other sierra cities in Ecuador. The guidebooks said that this was the place to try out cuy, the local name for guinea pig. So on Sunday (the most popular day to cook cuy apparently) we set off in search of 'Salon Lolita', which despite its dodgy sounding name turned out to be a really nice open air restaurant. The cuy could be ordered by size and either as a full or half. Cautiously I ordered a half, which turned out to be the arse end. 

And before people get all moral about this, cuy was a food source of the indigenous Americans long before they were children's pets in the West.

Cuy before

Cuy after

To leave Loja we took the bus to Cuenca, this promised to be a relaxing 5 hour drive through some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. In fact it was a very squashy, humid and generally uncomfortable trip on an overcrowded coach. Think of a London bus in rush hour, with a 5 hour journey. But it was cheap and got us there, and we did have seats, unlike some of the poor souls who had to stand.