Cuenca - Day 3

Woke up a little later this morning and skipped breakfast - making a commitment to eat a local almuerzo later on (a four course set menu lunch - pronounced alh-moo-AIR-zo).  They are usually $2.50 to $3.50 per person.  We have been eating too much at the gringo establishments because of our lack of language skills.  But lunch in Ecuador is pretty easy to order since the menu is set for the day, "Dos almuerzos, por favor" and the food starts coming out.

Our agenda today was to visit the Central Bank Museum, which has nothing to do with the Central Bank.  It is a large history and art museum with nice displays of Ecuadorian artifacts and artwork - even some shrunken heads from the Amazon portion of the country.  While most of the displays had signage in Spanish, there were quite a few that were in English as well.  Here is some of what we saw today:

Ecuadorian Costumes - they love to dress up for holidays, especially Carnival!

There were a lot of displays of masks

 There were many nice displays like this

 A shrunken head - the lips are sewn together so that last evil in the victim can't escape.  There were other shrunken heads, mostly with grey hair.  The signage said that the young warriors would practice by hunting sloth - beheading them and going through the head shrinking process.  I guess you have to practice anything to be good at it.  What did I learn?  Be faster than than a 3-toed sloth or a grey haired old man if you don't want your head shrunk!

 Some Ecuadorian Saddles

This kindergarten class was leaving the museum.  Their teacher made them stop and say "Buenos Dias" to us.  

 Outside the museum was an large outdoor exhibit.  Lots of earth work and gardens.

 This the beginning of the downhill trail to the exhibit.

 Llamas were grazing about half way down.  Not a good day to wear a "grass" colored shirt!  A couple of these guys and you would never have to mow your yard again!

 Lots of gardens and native plants.  There was also a neat aviary with about every kind of parrot and toucan you can think of 

 Of course, if you go down - you have to go back up - which is not that easy at 8200 feet above sea level!

We did a lot of walking this morning and by the time we exited the museum, we were pretty hungry.  There are literally hundreds of places in town that offer almuerzos for lunch.  They range from little closet sized cubby holes with a lady with a single burner cooking, to large hotels.  We walked just a block up from the museum and found a place that looked nice and clean.

Not too many hole-in-the-wall restaurants have entrances like this!

First Course - Potato Soup, Hominy and Juice

We didn't know what to do with the Hominy.  Finally we saw another couple pour it into their soup.  The soup was excellent!

 The Final Course was a plate with rice, beans and steak (or something between steak and jerky).  But it was good!

We did order two waters on top of the almuerzos.  The total?     $5.50 for the both of us!

We then hiked back to the room and took a nap, one of the few that we have taken during this trip.  When we woke-up, we decided to walk back to Park Calderon to replace the map that we lost (got to have a map!) and maybe get some ice cream.

 Got a new map!  Dana is the family navigator

 We did splurge and split a Banana Split - $3.95

And that made Dana really happy!

Obviously no need to go out tonight for dinner, but we did stop at a little store down from our hostel and loaded-up on some snacks.  After being so sick, we have been craving some junk food!

YES, you can get junk food in Ecuador too!