I was going to take a week off to travel with Nicolas & Lizzy. But Nicolas had to stay back and finish the theatre show he had been working on at the library and Lizzy had been bitten by a dog a few days earlier. So it looked like I would be going on my own.

On a side note, almost every dog I have encountered in South America so far has been super aggressive and unfriendly. The only dog that is friends with me is Blacky (who happens to be all white, by the way). I am the only one who calls her Blacky, and all my efforts of getting everyone else to use that name have been in vain. Nobody knows whose dog she actually is, but since she’s always hanging out with the volunteers, she’s unofficially become our dog. Her friendliness towards the volunteers doesn’t extend to the lambs of local farmers, and she has been known to attack and kill more than a few lambs. The farmers obviously don’t like that very much and have apparently often complained to Robert. But Robert hasn’t done anything about it so far, so for now, Blacky is still with us.

Anyway, coming back to the story, Lizzy had her dog-bite checked by a local doctor, who had asked her to keep an eye on the dog and see if it dies within the next 10 days. To be sure that it wasn’t anything serious, she couldn’t leave Salasaca before 10 days. Since she didn’t want to hang around waiting to see what happens to the dog, she decided to join me to travel for a week, and then come back to check on the dog.

We decided to go south to a famous town called Cuenca, and found somebody to host us via couchsurfing. Our host, Seth, turned out to be an American from Madison, Wisconsin who had been working as a teacher at Cuenca for a few years. Lizzy had gone to school in Madison, so they knew a lot of common hangout places, and also shared similar tastes in music.

With Seth & Lizzy in Seth's home

Seth's home

Cuenca turned out to be a beautiful town with huge cathedrals and cobble-stoned streets. We spent 3 days in Cuenca simply walking around most of the time. In between walks, we found time to watch a movie, visit a museum and cook an absolutely horrendous meal for Seth.

Cuenca

Making full use of the free wifi in the park

Narrow cobble-stoned streets

The smiling nun

What not to cook for your host

From Cuenca, we went to Azogues and walked up to the famous church in the nearby town of Biblian. The church is located on the side of a hill with the mountain itself serving as the back wall.

The super-slippery streets of Biblian

The church with the mountain as the back wall

There was also a huge statue of Mother Mary on top of a hill in Azogues. What I would’ve really liked to do was to hike up to the statue, but I simply didn’t have the time to do it. Hopefully I can come back to Azogues and get up there sometime.

The town of Azogues, with the large statue atop the hill  

The next day I wanted to take the ride on the roof of a train over the Nariz del Diablo (the Devil’s nose), but it was too late by the time we left Azogues. I was to later learn that my initial disappointment was unnecessary, because riding on top of the train wouldn’t have been possible anyway as it had been indefinitely terminated owing to some fatalities. There are some beautiful pictures of the train ride on this blog post.

Our next stop after Azogues was Rio Bamba, where I bought my black cap which was to become my trademark headgear for the rest of my travels.

Somewhere along the way - the greenery that is Ecuador

By the end of the week, I had begun to miss Salasaca, and I was glad to be back home on the 5th day. We played a tiring game of football and went pig-slapping to celebrate!