Walking tour of Cuenca Ecuador considered the most beautiful city in Ecuador. I’m spending the day with my friend Andres, a tour guide who knows the best things to do in Cuenca.
Want to book this official guide directly? https://www.instagram.com/andresexploraec/ or andrivet77 AT gmail DOT com
Many people retire in Cuenca Ecuador, there are lots of Expats. But it isn’t a gringo town, it’s a colonial city with lots of Ecuadorian culture, history and heritage…and known to have the best food in Ecuador.
We stopped at the corte de justicia or the justice court then el Seminario San Luis which is at one point it was where you would study to become a priest and is now really a court of a bunch of different restaurants, most of them are international and so I wasn’t really keen to have breakfast there.
Instead I tried Angelus which is a very local spot right on the main square. Normally when you kind of go to a restaurant on the main square, you think it’s super touristy but really this is all like Ecuadorians coming here. I got mote pillo and I am first with, like, oh my gawd, there’s some kind of crazy cheese in here, but no, not at all.
When you come to Ecuador and you have the eggs, you will notice that the yolks here are so orange and bright and that’s because you’re probably going to be having free range eggs. Mote pillo is a classic Ecuadorian breakfast with hominy, eggs and cheese.
We also visited both the New Cathedral in Ecuador which is home to stained glass by an Indigenous Artist and climbed to the top of the Cathedral for $1.
At El Monasterio del Carmen, or the Carmen Monastery 12 nuns live here cloistered. There are actually two cloistered monasteries in Cuenca, but only a handful left in all of Latin America. And nuns come in here. And they never leave. They dedicate their lives to being inside the monastery for their life. They are famous for agua de pitimas, and pitimas means more please. It’s made with herbs and flower petals for 50 cents
This is supposed to cure a number of things from insomnia to stomach problems to if you have skin problems. I’ve had this before because I had dry skin coming to this like very arid Andes.
Homero Ortega is a luxury Panama Hat museum and shop. They had people who are very famous from Ben Affleck to Johnny Depp. Hats here can cost up to $2500 but are sold for three times that outside Ecuador.
Lunch outside Cuenca in the San Joaquin neighbourhood at Cristol del Consuelo. We got the Bandeja Cristo del Consuelo which has a number of different kinds of meat, some sides, some avocado.
The Turi bus takes you on a tour of Cuenca to the Mirador or lookoff. It is only $5. Once there they offer you a glass of canelazo. But we did not follow the group.
We came up to the very top to the bar cafeteria restaurante La Colina. Canelazo is an alcoholic drink made with aguardiente, very typical drink in the Andes with aguardiente, an unaged sugarcane alcohol and they mix it with naranjilla fruit cinnamon and sugar. Everyone, again has their own recipe.
// MORE ABOUT ECUADOR//
This is my FOURTH time exploring Ecuador travel and food.
You can find all of my best tips at https://www.baconismagic.ca/Ecuador
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And you can find the CASA CUENCANA here, my favourite spot to stay and where you can book with Andres:
https://www.booking.com/hotel/ec/la-casa-cuencana.es.html
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00:00 Introduction
01:17 Breakfast in the Main Square
04:06 Cuenca New Cathedral
05:35 Old Cathedral
08:14 Agua de Pitimas
10:16 Homero Ortega Panama Hats
12:32 Traditional Ecuadorian Food
16:00 Cuenca Bus Tour
#cuenca #ecuador #SouthAmerica
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