Cuenca: Jesus Loves Both You, and Bonbons

I´m enjoying my first day in Cuenca as I type this: got here last night and immediately had a silly grin on my face. Cuenca is probably my favorite city in the world: the third largest city in Ecuador and a UNESCO world heritage site because of the beautiful, well preserved historical buildings. There´s probably a museum for every church in town, and there are 52 churches, so I geek out on museums every time I come here. Many streets are still paved with cobblestones, and thoroughly modern business is conducted in buildings which date from 300 years ago.

Cuenca´s also known as one of the cultural hotspots of the country: right now, it´s hosting an international film festival. One thing that will forever endear this city to me: Cuenca takes its festivals seriously, and the Corpus Christi observation that´s one night everywhere else is still going on here, six days later. Which was absolutely FABULOUS: I got to my hotel, felt hungry, had no guidebook, took a cab to the one restaurant I remembered how to find, and discovered that it was surrounded by blocks upon blocks of music, dance, food, and sweets. Corpus Christi is a Catholic festival commemorating the Eucharist: I have no idea how it´s observed in other places, but in Cuenca, it´s all about the candy. Dozens of white booths are set up, with tables piled high with different kinds of sweets--taffy, chocolate, marshmallows, little sculpted berries with sprinkles for seeds, blocks of gingerbread and frosted little cakes. The door-pull taffy from Baños made an appearance, though the seller had to make do with stretching it from a streetlight. It seemed like the entire town was out at the Parque Calderon: families, couples, gaggles of teenagers. Fireworks were going off, erratically, and every now and then, someone would set a square helium balloon on fire and launch it into the air. Stumbling on that was one of the most serendipitous experiences I´ve had as a traveler.

Tonight´s the last night, so I´m going to check it out again, and then hop into bed a bit early for tomorrow´s trip to Cajas National Park. I´ve been assured that the hike I signed up for is much more ¨tranquilo¨ than last year´s my-god-we´re-gonna-die-several-times-in-six-hours excursion to Laguna Quilotoa, so I think I´ll enjoy it.