It is 3:45pm, we are in Cuenca, Ecuador. It is a bright sunny day, much warmer than we expected as Cuenca is at an altitude of 2700ft plus. Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador... very old like Quito, but with much more charm. The streets are clean, there is significantly less poverty, and the buildings are beautiful. On the flip side to this, the cost of living is a little more expensive. We are currently paying 20 dollars a night for our room, almost twice what we have been paying everywhere else. We arrived here last night after 11 hours of scenic communiting, complete with a train derailment, 2 hours on a muddy highway, a couple of minor sunburns, and yet another case of food poisoning (the third: the second was in Baños which we neglected to mention - Maya is not yet accustomed to the South American bacteria).

To backtrack a bit. We left Baños on Saturday, delayed a day due to Maya´s weak stomach. The busride was uneventful... got into Riobamba, shared a cab from the bus station to our hostel with Mel and Serg (spelling??? sorry guys if you read this), our Dutch friends. The hostel was nice... but we were not very fond of Riobamba. The city is large, dirty, noisy, and on the whole, uninteresting. After arriving, we explored a bit, trying to find some food for Maya´s stomach which proved to be difficult. All we could find was the largest outdoor food market we have ever seen. The vegetables looked delicious, but the meat.... many whole pigs hanging outside with no refrigeration, chicken and fish cooked on the dirtiest of grills.... Anyways, not much more to say about the city, except in the evening we met up with a man from the Yukon who had a guitar with him. Serg and Brian (the man from Whitehorse) entertained us in the evening with many good singalong songs. Maya even sang a solo piece while Braden played.... Mr. Jones by Counting Crows. (We had had a couple glasses of Chilean wine and some terrible Ecuadorian ´wine´.)

Up at 5:30 in the morning on Sunday to catch the scenic train to Alausi. This train is famous because for many years, it was composed only of boxcars while the customers rode on the roof. (The train goes relatively slow... about 30 to 40 km per hour). Sadly, riding on the roof is no longer allowed because last February, a tourist lost his head while passing under an electrical wire. We were fortunate that our train was transporting a front end loader on a flat bed car, so we were able to ride out in the open for most of the journey.

Five interesting things to report from our train ride. Number one: the train starts in the city and moves through the countryside and mountains, allowing us riders to see numerous climates and ecosystems (cactus desert, grasslands, rolling farm hills, and steep clay cliffs). Number two: at the beginning of the ride vendors sell lollipops (6 for a dollar) as it is tradition for passengers to throw them out the windows to children from small towns who wait for the train. Ironically, the vendor who sold us the lollipops was probably about ten years old himself. Number three: the train had to stop mid journey to unload the front end loader. This was done by building a ramp out of 6x6´s (which we had been using as seats). While four train car loads of tourists got off the train to stare and take pictures of the ordeal, Braden made some new friends by getting his hands covered in grease by helping carry the 6x6´s and by building the ramp. As a result, we got our choice of lumber to sit on for the remaining journey. Number four: the train passed numerous times within 6 inches of many cliffs, to fall off the flatbed car to the river below (a few hundred feet down), would have been a bad idea. Luckily for Maya, Braden had the outside seat for the journey. Number five: the freight car, second from the engine, derailed. This led to a half an hour of the numerous conductors attempted to get the train back on the tracks. As best as we can tell, derailments must be commonplace as they had the right equipment and knowhow to get it back on fairly quickly (see photos).

Off the train in Alausi, and a four hour bus ride to Cuenca (two of which on a dangerous mountainside muddy road), and we arrived safely in Cuenca. We are starting to dread the buses here. Braden is dreaming of buying a car, or motorbike, or hitchhiking... anything must be better than the buses. Had difficulty last night finding a place to stay.... two places no longer existed as they must have when our guide book was written, and another had changed name and thus has doubled in price. Well that brings us to the beginning of this letter and our description of Cuenca in a kind of roundabout way.

Tomorrow, we are off to Loja, and soon after, will cross into Peru. Going to try to put up pictures and videos now, crossing our fingers.

Lots of Love,

Maya and Braden

PS. To answer the question to who writes these blogs.... well... we both do... usually just passing the keyboard back and forth. The descriptions are mostly Bradens though... as Maya likes to include useless rambles and words like nice, neat and pretty... you know, really descriptive adjectives.