Cuenca & Alausí

View over Cuenca from the Cathedral
View over Cuenca from the Cathedral

We landed back in Guayaquil from the Galapagos and headed straight for the nearby bus station. We were heading to the small colonial city of Cuenca, back on the edge of the Andes. We had a 4 hour bus ride ahead of us so wanted to get going as soon as possible. The bus station was a huge confusing building, part bus station and part busy shopping mall. After staggering around in circles with our giant bags we found an information desk and were directed to the right bus ticket booth. I asked when the next bus left and was told 5pm, this was in about 3 minutes time but they still sold us the tickets and called the bus conductor to wait for us, what service! So after more running through the station/mall we were on a bus only about 45 minutes after landing!
We had comfy seats and the journey didn’t feel too long, we arrived at about 9.30pm and got a taxi to our hostel. We’ve been booking one place ahead at the moment, especially when arriving late at night it’s nice to know you have a room waiting for you. The hostel, La Cigale (French for Cicada, and it seemed to attract mostly French tourists!), was above a restaurant/bar and so once checked in we just had to walk downstairs for a nice evening meal and beers. We messaged Stephanie, a friend from the travelling classroom who was doing her final week of Spanish lessons in Cuenca, and arranged to meet the next day.

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