Greetings from Cuenca, Ecuador!

What a charming city! It´s a bit like Loja, only bigger. The streets are relatively clean. The buildings are good looking. The prominent churches are lit up at night. It´s a very attractive city to walk in. Everyone agrees it´s relatively safe. You can walk the colorful streets at night. In talking to locals, I asked why is the city so clean? The answer was pretty uniform. There is little or no poverty here. Everyone is getting by pretty well, even putting money aside for future use, etc. Their perception: when there is no poverty, there is no crime and there is no litter. Interesting!

I have been struggling to find a simple continental breakfast. I get the impression that locals either eat nothing at all, or they chow down to rice, corn, meat, potatoes and eggs.....the works! I went to a nearby cafe, probably the only one open at the relatively early hour of 8 a.m. I gave in to the waitress´cajoling and decided to order the "American breakfast." Oh well, what the heck. I decided to splurge ($2) and have a big breakfast. Breakfast consisted of pineapple juice, a dish of sliced papaya, scrambled eggs, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a fresh cup of their best instant coffee. This place was really first class. Thjey put the jar of instant coffee on the table and refilled with hot water regularly. Mix to taste!

Another nice, if not striking, difference fromn Cuzco, Peru. I went to the tourist information office and got a map of the city and some other stuff. The nice lady also gave me a color brochure with wonderful pictures of the major colonial churches in the city, entrance to all of which is free. How nice!

Yesterday I visited the very elaborate Museum Pumapungo sponsored by the Central Bank. The last great Inca chief made the mistake of having two sons (as one Peruvian wag said to me). The result was that one son ruled from Cuzco down in Peru and the other ruled from Cuenca up here in Ecuador. Their combined empire stretched down the Andes all the way to Chile. Given the mountainous, if not impassable, terrain, it´s amazing that they werre able to administer that stretch of territory at all. Too bad they´re still not around to be able to put them in charge of Iraq!

The two sons did not get along and engaged in battle, fortuitously for the Spanish conquistadors, who arrived at about the same time. Smallpox traveled faster through the Inca Empire than did the conquistadors, so by the time Pizarro arrived, the Inca population had been drastically reduced (some say more than 50%). We would view such terrible disease as misfortune. The Incas viewed it as well as punishment from the gods for perceived misdeeds. So when Pizarro arrived, not only were the Inca numbers greatly diminished, but their morale was very low as well with 50% of the population dead or dying. All of this made Pizarro´s "conquest" just that much easier.

It´s fascinating to see the pre-Incan cultural works here as compared to those farther south. In my (humble) opinion, the pre-Incan cultures here just never achieved the heights of say, the Mochicas in Peru or the Tiwanakus in northern bolivia/Peru.

Unfortunately, Cuenca has a wet and a dry season. I´m at the tail end of the wet season and it seems to rain just about every afternoon. Because Cuenca is high up in the mountains, the thunder showers are pretty strong...and wet! Yuck!

When I return to California, I will not miss the Ecuadorian rain. I will however miss the sound of church bells in the morning from half a dozen churches within earshot. It´s a very harmonic way to start the day!