On my first day in Baños I did a horse ride to the volcano Tungurahua. This volcano is near Baños and it is active since years. All the time every now and then little eruptions. And it is noisy! The horse ride was quite ok and on the way back I saw first time the Casa Amarilla and I decided that I wanted to spend at least one night there to watch the kin kin and the birds during daytime.
It is easy to forget about time while walking through the old streets of Cuenca. All over the place you will find the loveliest restored colonial houses and a lot of churches or cathedrals – one more pompous than the other. Therefore the center is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Trust site. This city which its full name Santa Ana de los cuatro ríos de Cuenca is definitely one of the most beautiful colonial cities of the world ad at the same time the third biggest in Ecuador. It is located in the southern highlands at above 2500m (8200ft) above sea level. Named was Cuenca around 1557 but first settlements go back to 8060 BC. Later the indigenous people the Cañari settled which were conquered by the Incas which called it Tomebamba. For the Inca it became as same important like Cusco in Peru and was considered a candidate for the mythical city of gold which the Spanish called El Dorado. In 1557 Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, then Viceroy of Peru had commissioned the founding and ordered the city named after his home town of Cuenca, Spain. Nowadays according to the latest numbers about 467,000 people live here.
The Old Cathedral of Cuenca, or El Sagrario, was constructed 1557, the same year that the town of Cuenca was founded. Its location where to buy viagara in south africa is on ancient Inca ruins.
El Sagrario / Old Cathedral of Cuenca
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I went to Sagada actually because I’ve heard about some Hanging Coffins. Sounds strange therefore I got especially curious! Supposedly there is a strange ritual in Sagada in the north of the Philippines. If someone died they had put up the coffin with some favorite belongings like cheers up on a rock formation. I really did not know what to think about it. So I had to see it with my own eyes. The time was tricky because the Philippines just have the worse typhoons in ages. So basically I went with two fellow travelers I met in Manila up north and our second destination was Sagada. The town is famous for 1. The Hanging Coffins, 2. The Weaving, 3. The civet coffee like coffee Alamid.
First of all a tip: To go to the coffins you really need no guide they are just behind the cemetery. Just cross it and walk 5min into the forest. And then you see the coffins hanging on the rocks. Really I was disappointed. It was nothing really special to me. I have seen more interesting graveyards. Some lose bones lay around from a coffin what broke down. On the way back I went to the . It is especially nice because you can watch the ladies weaving the material. Close by is a shop where you can buy lots of different seized bags and more. And then you are probably interested to know what is Coffee Alamid? It is the most expensive coffee on the world and it is made out of civet poo! Yes it is true. Basically the civet a nocturnal animal of the mongoose family eats the ripest and sweetest coffee cherries during coffee season. Later people collect the ‘leftovers’ after the animal excretes them out and make coffee with a special taste out of them. Weird but very true!
Sagada Read the rest of this entry »
One day of my days in San Christobal de las Casas I made a trip to the Cañón del Sumidero. To both sides of Río Grijalva rock formations can loom up to 1000m height. I felt so small in between those majestic mountains. While enjoying the landscape from the boat on the river banks you can watch various crocodiles and the typical black vultures.
I have seen crocs before but these here came really close and I was able to take great photos….
The turning point of that cruise is the Chicoasén dam what with its 261m high walls belongs to the ten biggest of its kind on earth. After the boat trip I stopped shortly in Chiapa de Corzo the town near by for a quick snack and looking at some architecture…
Cañón del Sumidero
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