by travelwithnicole

Arriving in Cuenca

Cuenca, Ecuador

 


It was relatively late by the time I got to Cuenca from Quito. I was relieved to see my host family were at the airport to meet me.

Maria & Alfredo do not speak any English so it has been an interesting week and I am slowly starting to find my voice. At the moment I am currently attending three classes in the afternoon, which leaves me the morning to explore the city.

I am sure you would all love Cuenca it is a beautiful colonial city with lots of the original buildings still in good condition. In fact some of the very first stores still occupy the same buildings.

In the centre of the town there is a square filled with flowers and I have spent many an hour there taking photos of unsuspecting passers by. There are still many traditionally dressed people which come from the surrounding mountains to sell their goods in the city and you can notice them by their colourful dress and white hats with a black ribbon.

The weather in Cuenca can change in one day so I have had very hot weather and some cold days. It generally rains in the afternoon and the other day we had a great thunderstorm – at least I like them :-).

Being so high above sea level I still find it not that easy to walk at my normal pace or run up the stairs to the school (I was told there are 66 steps…) but luckily the general route to the town center is along one of Cuenca´s rivers – Tomebamba. There is always something interesting happening like people playing music or people washing their clothes!

One of my weekends I went with a group of other students to El Chirro de Giron – which are some waterfalls about 1 hour south of Cuenca. The drive through the Andes was spectacular and we managed to stop to take some photos. We eventually saw the waterfalls we were about to visit in the distance and it dawned on all of us that it was going to be quite a climb to get there.

Not designed for too many tourist visits there was no such thing as stairs or a man made path and I was cursing the fact that I had to carry my backpack for the next two and a half hours to the top. We did of course have to stop a few times to get to the top because of the altitude and I did wonder how on earth I am going to manage the Inca Trail!

The water fall was well worth seeing and if you didn´t find it to be beautiful I am sure anything you brought for lunch would have made up for it. We were lucky not to have rain and spent a good hour around the pools at the bottom of the waterfall.

Our trip back down was just as entertaining and we almost lost one of our party down the hill…I walked behind him from then on….just in case he lost his footing again.


 

by travelwithnicole

Dubrovnik – the walled city

Dubrovnik, Croatia


After the quite and peaceful time we had on the water and Lopud Island, Dubrovnik came across as very touristy and busy. We noticed at the first place we sat down for breakfast that the portions of food were not as generous and our waiter far from friendly. However the Old City was full of character!

We spent a day exploring the town before walking on the walls enjoying the scenary out to sea as well as the red tilled roofs of all the houses. Although completley different experience from the islands our trip would not have been complete without visting this town with it’s ancient history.

by travelwithnicole

Enchanting Lopud Island

It looked like something out of a movie set
Lopud, Croatia


It took a 40 minute ferry ride from Dubrovnik to reach Lopud Island. It looked like something out of a movie set – this little town on the waters edge with sloping green hills behind it. It was very exciting that we – Lynne (sister), Mike (brother-in-law) and I – were to spend our next week here and a bonus for us it has the only sandy beach of all the islands.

The first day on Lopud Island we tested out our Kayak’s before venturing in the water from Lopud to Sunj beach. It was a fantastic feeling to be on the water in the sunshine and for the first time in ages I actually felt relaxed. The day continued that way with a leisurely lunch of calamari and salad and then either floating in the sea or lying on the beach. What a life!

Raring to go the next day we tackled the island of Kolcep – it proved to be both a mental and physical challenge! The sea was quite choppy and we all took strain to keep ourselves focused in paddling in the right direction — lunch could not have come soon enough and we certainly could of had more time to rest before the long haul back to Sunj Beach. We all celebrated our successful 18miles challenge with a drink before tackling the steep hill back to bed!!

For the remainder of the trip we kayaked everyday exploring the islands around Lopud, enjoying some gorgeous sunsets and the company of some great people who were part of our adventure.

 

by travelwithnicole

Quick summary of a beautiful country

Havana, Cuba


Arriving in Cuba was such a great feeling, one we finally made it and two at 10pm the air had this muggy feeling that reminded me of Hawaii – this was definitely going to be a tropical paradise. And it was too some extent. The landscape was fantastic with rolling hills, palm trees, lots of tropical fruit trees and long white sandy beaches contrasting with the turquoise blue ocean. But for the people it is a struggle – stuck in a communist country with no access to any information on the outside world is pretty unbelievable. Even more so when we visited the ration stores where people queue for their bread everyday and on certain days of the month for other rations such as a bar of soap every 6 months or for their quota of 6 eggs per year. Yes there are other stores but they have to pay for extra supplies and considering the average wage is about £17/month you can imagine for some it is a struggle.

However all the guidebooks are right when they say the people never stop smiling. They are indeed very friendly probably because the tourist bring in extra money for them but I also think they are genuinely a happy bunch…AND extremely musical. We listened to music in almost every restaurant we went too and of course got taught how to salsa. We were promised Adonis as our instructor (seriously that was his name) but he was unable to make it that night…very fortunate for us as it turned out he was far from a Greek God.

The food on the trip was far better than expected and we luckily got to sample some home cooking a number of times on our trip, but although the home cooking was good, it was not always the best place to visit the ladies as a few in our group found out when they were led to the outside toilet – also known as ‘the pigsty’ with their very own pigs. Very entertaining.

I did lots of walking on my holiday about 3 hours everyday – through forests, old coffee plantations, tobacco fields, up cliffs to see the great views and the local farmers hurricane hideouts…so I welcomed the two days we had at the beach with a chance to sit back and do some snorkelling and of course try the other local speciality ‘Pina Colades’. I say other, as on most occasions Mojitos were the drink of choice. The sea life is pretty similar to other parts of the Caribbean and I happily snapped away with my digital camera in its new water housing.

My holiday ended by spending two days in Havana. I explored the craft markets, took classic guidebook photos and soaked up the entire atmosphere with one last mojito in my hand!