11-17th November
On Monday we debated whether to go to the spa just outside of Cuenca or not. In the end, the fact that I didn’t have any swimwear was the deciding factor. In stead, we went to a workshop where Panama hats were being made, where Zab was sorely tempted to go on a little spree, then we lunched out before working at home in the afternoon.
We rectified my lack of swimwear on Tuesday afternoon at one of Cuenca’s shopping malls after a morning of work at home and ate Colombian arepas for dinner. The best option was to order swimwear from Juste Moi online.
I went out to interview two Spanish brothers who run a tapas bar for our expat living series on Wednesday while Zab worked at home. In the afternoon, we took a taxi to Piedra de Agua spa out of town and hopped between steam rooms, pools of differently coloured mud, and hot and cold baths. We came out feeling very smooth.
After a brief misunderstanding on Thursday morning with the owner of our apartment (we thought he’d offered to drive us, while he'd assumed we’d hired a car), we took a taxi out to El Cajas National Park. The ride, while beautiful, was extremely bumpy and we both arrived feeling rather car sick so ended up just walking around for about an hour before coming back to town.
On Friday we started ticking off things on our Cuenca to-do list, starting with a visit to a factory and shop where Panama hats are made followed by lunch at a lovely vegetarian restaurant. The afternoon was spent working in one of our favourite cafés and in the evening, a friend came over for dinner.
We went out to the Central Bank Museum on Saturday morning, which turned out to be rather uninteresting, except for learning about Ecuador’s monetary history. After a very tasty lunch, Zab got a haircut and finally went hat shopping.
Since Sunday was our last full day in Cuenca and it didn’t make sense to buy more food to cook, we went out for brunch, took our devices and stayed working for several hours. In the afternoon a friend came over for a chat then we went out to work in our final Cuenca café.
