bus ride to cuenca day 1

Greetings gang. It took 2 full days to travel from Quito to Cuenca, and I would definitely recommend the ride. On the way south, our first stop was to Technirose, a huge nursery where they grow roses. Wow..... Orman would be impressed. Acres and acres of roses. They ship about 25,000 a day on average but for Valentines day they ship 100,000 per day. We got the full tour, from the fields, to picking, to trimming and packing. Beautiful. A short walk from the garden was a beautiful hotel. We´re talking in the middle of nowhere here. I´m amazed how people find these places but I met a woman there from Seattle who was going the the Galopagos. The hotel used to be a plantation and it was quite historic. We were treated to afternoon tea while a band played. Naturally I bought the cd...more using to practice our salsa Jeff!

Several hours later we stopped for lunch. I doubt the health department would have approved but our guides ate so we did too. We all ordered the special of the day...soup, rice, chicken, and potato cakes. I suspect the chicken was just captured from the back yard. At any rate we saw them take it from the spit right on the street and bring it into the restaurant. Restaurant is really too fancy a word for the place...just a hole in the wall spot. j

Then it was off to ride through the Andes at 17,000 feet. Several hours of winding up and down the mountains, sometimes on cobblestone rode, most of the time of dirt path. It was a one lane road of course and naturally we passed several trucks. There were cheers all around each time we failed to careene off the cliff. not sure how to spell careene but you get the idea.

There were multiple conversations on the bus questioning our destination. The girls concluded that as long as it was clean, they were not going to ask for more. We were already warned that where we would be staying we would have not access to a store, much less a bar for nightlife. We were in the middle of indigenous country. It is amazing how they can plow right up the mountain using the hand plows and ox. We saw lots of farm with both men and women working in the fields. and lots of children passing the time playing along the side of the roads.

After hours of winding we finally arrived at Hacienda Leito. If you can, be sure to Google this place. I´m sure Anne went but she was much too quiet about how great this place is. The mormans say that the white room in their temple is as close as they can get to God, but I disagree. It think it is this place in Ecuador. It used to be the home of Jesuit priests. Then it was a single home and now it is a hotel. But it sits high, extremely high, in the Andes. The view is incredible. The landscaping is beautiful, and there are the usual amenities...pool, massage, workout room. The rooms are in different buildings and the main lobby and dining area are separate. After dinner, there was a fire lit in the fireplace that is in each room. I had enough wood in the room to keep the fire going until about midnight and the fireplace was still warm in the morning. Wow!

When we arrived, it was not long before we realized that we were hearing a constant roar of thunder. It turned out to be the sound of the volcano eruption. After dark, we could see the red glow that looked like fireworks as it erupted and then spilled down the mountainside. very amazing!