Ecuador was added to our trip for a couple reasons. As I explained earlier, it was somewhat due to cost that there would be this extra week. Why that week became Ecuador is because it is a place that my parents went to right before Covid started, in the Feb of 2020, and loved it. They went on a lark, on the suggestion of their financial planners who have some financial investments in the country (yes, fairly random connection from my perspective), but they sang Ecuador's praises, and more than that, Cuenca's praises quite a bit.
As mentioned in my previous post, the arrival into Cuenca was a nice little amouse bouche of what was to come. It was late on a Sunday Night so barely anything was open but we went for a little walk near our AirBNB, which is situated nicely a block away from a row of cafes and a giant park (with a supermarket on teh other side), a block away from the main thoroughfare cutting through the Southern (more modern) half of the city, and a ten minute walk away from the Centro Historico (old town) area of Cuenca. That first walk of idyllic bliss, with a calm breeze befitting Cuenca's 8,000ft elevation, without a care in the world proving right the cab driver who told us repeatedly how safe and peaceful Cuenca is, and you can tell this was indeed a special place.
I was working during the day, so I don't think I really saw everything of Cuenca to make a real determination - certainly other than walking around and taking in the life, I didn't do any proper "sightseeing." Not that there is a bunch of traditional sights - some of the best seem to be some small, but well curated archaeology museums, the Cajes National Park (a day trip) and their multiple churches and cathedrals, that all close way too early. Anyway, despite that, I too can't really sing Cuenca's praises enough after spending about 3.75 days here.
First off, my word do they take Christmas seriously, in teh best possible way. There are lights and trees and deconarations and everything else everywhere. Now, there is a sad tinge to this because it seems part of the reason is that the mayor of Cuenca really loves Christmas, and took it as some personal mission that he make Cuenca into the best Christmas town/city in South America. Having not seen the rest of them, I can probably still say he is at least medalling in that competition. The more modern part has lights and mroe stores have done some decorations (many going full out snow animals and snowmen and stuff that will never appear naturally here), and the main thoroughfare has rows of Christmas Trees lit up in its center. But that's nothing on the old town.
The main square in teh middle is basically South America's rockefeller center. The large face of the cathedral on one side is lit up. The middle has a giant Christmas tree and a gazebo that is playing carols roughly 80% of the day. Every three has lights strung on it. The northern face of the square has large department store style buildings with Christmas decorations all over their facade, includ9kng a saks-type store in the middle with LED screens of santas and gnomes and what not. From that stores rooftop you get a glorious view of the square below you, the lights everywhere, and also the breadth and magnitude that is Cuenca. Each alley too off of the square similarly has lights and lit snowflakes, and little courtyards with more trees. It is a bit overwhelming, but you can't help how charming it is.
The old town as a whole is like that, with just pleasantness and joy radiating outwards off of its main square. My only knock is they don't have the best handicraft game in Cuenca (or really Ecuador in general), as a couple of the boutique stores I looked up were either too clothing forward or expensive (still, give Cafe Yongoe a try) and then the rest were markets that were probably a notch fancier than the Mariscal one in Quito. In the last one, on our last night, before we had to head to dinner, I finally, randomly found a remarkable stone statue of a turtle leaping from a rock for 20 bucks. Like an oasis in a dessert, I found what I wanted.
The old town is lovely, but its the newer South side that really showcases Cuenca's strengths. It's amazing how modern some of the areas of Southern Cuenca are. The street surrounding our dinner spot the second night (Dos Sucres, will come back to it) was glistening with modern cafes, restaurants, bars, built in a way you could be in a Nashville, or Melbourne. There were 3-4 of these little stretches of commercial areas in the Southern half, mixed in with modern office buildings, banks and a ton of college buildings. Cuenca's town is teeming with education.
Truly the Southern half of Cuenca had anything you would want for a place to live - including a great craft brewery Golden Prague, which despite the name didn't only sell Czech-inspired pilsners. In fact, I don't know if they had a true Czech beer on tap. I had a mix of a Belgian dubbel (awesome), and IPA (good, not great) and a blueberry porter (shockingly great). The place was also decked out to the nines for Christmas, and was fairly full of locals on both Monday evening and Wednesday. Golden Prague, a five minute walk from our AirBNB), is just a perfect little microcosm of what makes Cuenca awesome.
A macro-cosm (if that was a word) of the same effect is the food. Cuenca is a foodie paradise in what i'm learning is an underrated foodie country as a whole. I should've realized something special was ahead when my first meal was fairly good versions of staid dishes in a hotel setting. That could've been a 3/10 meal, and it was a solid 6.5/10 or 7/10. The other meals where all considerably higher, even the lunch I uber-eats'd from a local Peruvian, which served an excellent chaufa. But really, these were about the dinners (whose leftovers begat my other lunches).
Each dinner I think showcased a little bit of different aspects of Cuenca brilliance, the first being a mom-and-pop seafood spot (Capitan&Co), the second a tried adn true mainstay of Cuenca brilliance (Dos Sucres) and the last being something similar, but a little more upmarket with some European influence (El Mercado). All three were great in the end.
Capitan&Co started auspicously with the mom of the mom and pop taking about 30 minutes to take our order. She expressed apologies through her older daughter (who is part time cook, part time student) saying that they make everything to order and right before we came in had a party of ten put in their mains. As we got our food about twenty minutes later, three fish or seafood dishes cooked in a kitchen helmed by the pop ("El Capitan") it was clear how true that freshness statement is amazing. The sauces were rich and heavy (and amazing, in general) but that seafood was out of this world. The freshest langostinos charred so beautifully. A giant loin of robalo (a South American version of snook) that was just incredibly flavorful and soft despite being thick to the point I would butcher it into a rubbery mess. The sea bass cooked as good as I've had it. This place knows seafood. More than that, with it being literally mom-and-pop (and two daughters), and its loud red and green colors, it truly was the South American version of Cape Town's Miller's Thumb. Cuenca a place after my heart in ways it probably doesn't even realize.
Dos Sucres was in one of those trendy eatery areas, but it itself was built into a house and served some great stuff, from a truly wonderful octopus starter, an insane lamb croquette dish, and two just unreal mains. One was a "lamb curry" which more than that was a large piece of lamb braised for seemingly a week in a beautiful sauce of apple, rosemary and lamb stock. The other was even better, a chicken leg served confit in another unreal sauce - marrying crispy of crisp skin with juiciest of juicy skin. Again, just marvelous. Dos Sucres was excellent.
And then, arguably, El Mercado was even better. Housed in a spot right at the end of the old town, with the back of it being a large floor to ceiling window overlooking the river (and the more modern south Cuenca behind it), El Mercado was special from a vibes and ambience perspective. The food met that challenge as well. Our starters were a really great amberjack crude with a brilliant emulsion sauce, and then a really inventive crab roll, with the roll being sliced avocado, all in a delicious coconut and corn broth. Our mains were maybe the best tongue dish I've ever had, another great fish dish (seafood is excellent here it seems, despite Cuenca not being near any real source of seafood), and then a mind-blowing pork rib dish where they, much like Dos Sucres did with the chicken the day earlier, combined a deep fried / crispy outside with ridiculously fall-off-the-bone middle meat, all with some great pickles and sauces. On the whole, El Mercado was a brilliant way to go out.
At the end of it, I was quite sorry to be leaving Cuenca, leaving Ecuador. I will be back - I don't know when, but whenever I do, I will make sure to come to Cuenca when I'm either off, or on a weekend, and can at least get to experience the sites. In some ways, Cuenca is very much like the Ecuador version of Oaxaca - lovely old town, streets and lanes of brilliance, culinary excellence, all in a plateau town that doesn't have nearly the problems and challenges that much of its country around it do (drug-related crime, essentially). I know some may not think "the Oaxaca of Ecaudor" is a complement, but it damn sure is. Goodbye Cuenca, and see you again soon - and can't wait to see what you replace all your Christmas decorations with in other times in the year.
