NOVEMBER 2019
Apparently, Cuenca is the most colonial looking city of Ecuador. As Baños and Quito feature more modern architecture, Cuenca seemed like a cool, different stop on our way to Peru. From the moment we arrived, we immediately felt like we were in Spain. The historical center of Cuenca features many houses with balconies that were completely decorated with flowers, which reminded us of Andalusia. Cuenca’s main attraction is the New Cathedral of Cuenca, which is an enormous church, with several blue domes on its roof. The bricks of the New Cathedral reminded us of being in Italy, we were super surprised by the European vibes of this city! We found Cuenca the perfect stop on our way to Peru, check out our picture diary & route to Peru in this blogpost.
Practical information
We arrived to Cuenca from Baños, this took us 7 hours by bus and cost us $ 10 per person. From the Cuenca bus terminal it is a $ 2 dollar taxi ride away from the historical center, which is where we stayed. Cuenca’s historical center has many affordable hotels, so you absolutely have no reason not to stay in the historical district. We stayed at Hotel Posada del Rey for $ 35 per night, including breakfast. This hotel is located just around the corner of the beautiful New Cathedral. We were allowed to make use of the facilities of the hotel for the whole day that we were waiting for our night bus to Peru, which was super kind. Cuenca is not very touristy, but has some more upscale touristy restaurants, where the food is of great value and quality, but probably expensive for Ecuador (dishes of $10-12). We felt safe walking around at night, though I must say that Cuenca had a large amount of beggars.
What we did in Cuenca
Our stay in Cuenca mostly focused on walking through the old city center, having good food and finding the best photo spots of the New Cathedral. I absolutely fell in love with the New Cathedral, the bricks created a very special contrast with the blue domes that are situated on the roof. It took from 1880 until 1994 (??) to construct the Cathedral, but it became the true masterpiece of Cuenca. We visited the rooftop terrace for $ 2 per person, to get a nice close up view of the domes and beautiful views of Cuenca.
Next to the cathedral (on the right if you stand in front of it) you will find a building that features many restaurants surrounding a patio. From this patio you will get pretty good views from the Cathedral. We loved having a real Italian pizza at Filippo’s, which is also located in this building. The flowers decorations of the patio made our visit even better! Raymipampa is also located here, which is a nice restaurant for dinner. We really liked that the historical center of Cuenca was very lively at night, as many places we visited in Colombia were super quiet at night.
In Cuenca you can also do a little bit of shopping, I restrained from that, but from the building that features the H&M, you can get a nice aerial view of the blue domes of the Cathedral. We also photobombed the Cathedral from a tailor’s shop… but I couldn’t get the perfect picture 😉 It seems like a rooftop terrace is being built on top of the H&M building, so for future visitors that would be my recommendation.
Getting to Peru
From Cuenca you can take a direct bus into Peru. As it takes about 24 hours before you reach Lima, we decided to cut up our travels and take a bus to Máncora. On the bus station of Cuenca you can buy the bus tickets directly at the offices of the bus companies. There are two bus companies going directly to Peru (Super Semeria and Azuay), the tickets cost about $ 18, you don’t have to switch buses at the border and all the border crossings are done overnight. We went with Super Semeria and were satisfied with our journey; everyone on the bus was pretty quiet, there were no loud movies and you received assistance at the border crossing. The border crossing between Cuenca and Máncora is called Aguas Verdes and it was quite straightforward. This border crossing has recently been improved and you receive an exit and entrance stamp in the same building. Hielke still has bad memories from his border crossing between Ecuador and Peru in 2011, so he was super happy with our smooth journey. Because our journey was so smooth we arrived in Máncora in the middle of the night (5AM), luckily there were tuktuks waiting to bring us to our hotel. Find out about our experiences in Máncora in the next blog!