It was a joy to wake up in a comfortable bed in the luxurious apartment of my Amigo Bueno Señor Hansen. My friend emigrated to Ecuador about eight months ago and he has been sorely missed from our Brotherhood in Seattle. The time for solo journeying has ended and the time for companionship has begun.
Cuenca is the thrid largest city in Ecuador, sitting at about 8,000 feet above sea level in the Southern Highlands. It is a very beautiful place, with four rivers, well maintained plazas, and a lovely colonial El Centro. It is also a Unesco World Heritage site and home to about 3,500 ex-pats. Seeing Gringos on the street here is not an uncommon site.
The first order of business was sharing coffee and a cigar on the exquisite terrace overlooking the Tomebamba river. Sorry, I spelled it incorrectly in the previous blog. After watching the town wakingup and waving to passersby on the river walk, we headed off to the local Gringo cafe to meet a few of Señor Hansen's fellow ex-pats.
Following brekkie, Mr. Hansen led me on a walking trip around the El Centro, with a bakery here and a parque there. We sat at a sidewalk cafe, sipping coffee and chatting with the owner while taking in the passing street scene. Flower markets, colonial buildings, a good friend and a really lazy day, what's not to enjoy?
There was one mission for the day, which was shopping for a new hat. Señor Hansen has talked up the quality of the local "Panama" hats and I was not going home without one. We headed off to the hat emporium and museum, THE place to get a hat here in town.
This is the room with the good stuff. The tourist hats are outside in the big room.
With the help of the Hat Guy, I tried on hats, running into the same problem that I had in Otovalo. My cabeza is muy gorditio. But at this hat shop, that is not a problem. I found the style I liked, a narrower brim in a natural finish. The bad news was that there was not one in my size. Es no problema, one can be made for me in a matter of hours. The process was simple. Find the correct size, which is XXXL, pick the style, pick the colour, pick a hat band. It will be ready at four PM. Simple, no? Si!
We strolled back to the luxury digs and passed the time with Señor Hansen kicking the shit out of me on the cribbage board. By the time he tired of pegging around the board with wild abandon, it was time for me to retreat back to El Centro for a few errands and the retrieval of my new hat.
Sporting the final product.
A fine eveing was spent at the home of a lovely Canadian couple over in Gringolandia. After a pasta dinner and scrumptious dessert, we battled it out in partners cribbage. I brought my bad card luck with me and my team was bested amidst tons of laughter and trash talking. Full as ticks and tired, we cabbed it back across town and called it a night.
It was a day of laziness, fine companionship and relaxation, just what this tired traveler needed.
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