Rejoicing in This Divine Romance: Ecuador Day 7

August 19, 2011

These last couple of days in Ecuador were an extremely necessary part of our trip. I was awake for about two and a half days straight, but it was worth every single second of it. Yesterday (Friday) morning we woke up earlier than normal for our last breakfast at Tangara. Our tour bus picked us up and we were off on our last adventure. Our tour guide, Elsie, gave us a brief history of some of the places we were passing in Guayquil. After that we crossed the river into Duran. This is a much more run down part of Ecuador. A lot of our patients come from this area, so we asked for our bus driver to take a route through the city so we could get an idea of how they live each day. It put things in perspective for a lot of us.

Duran

We saw women on the streets doing laundry, as well as on the roofs of houses. We also passed a cemetery, which is much different than the ones we have in the US. The ones here have the plots built on top of each other or often on the sides of hills. The poorer people get buried toward the top and often their plots get washed out due to the rainfall. This specific cemetery we passed was the one where Sr. Annie buys plots for the residents at the Damien House so they can have a proper burial. (Did I mention Sr. Annie is amazing? She advocates so much for the residents and she loves them so much. It is so inspiring to be around her.)

The rest of our adventure in Ecuador involves a trip to the Highlands – Cuenca to be exact. There is only one way to get there from here. The road is very long and winds through the mountains. It takes 4-5 hours to get there, but the scenery is unreal so that makes up for it! There are all sorts of fruit markets on the side of the road on the way up. We made a stop right before entering the National Park. This is when the real mountainous views become clear.

Me - Right before heading into the National Park!

First clear view of the mountains.

I was literally speechless for most of the ride. I have no idea what heaven looks like, but for a while I felt like I was there. Our world is so beautiful. Our God created this for us and I am grateful. There was a period of time where I could not take my eyes away from it and I completely forgot about taking pictures. Thankfully, everyone else was snapping them (even though they don’t begin to do the scenery justice).

Once we made it into the city of Cuenca, I was once again in awe. It is a completely different world up here. We got to our hotel, had the best meal I have eaten in a very long time, and then were off for a bus tour of the city.

My first glimpse of the city!

A woman on the street selling fresh fruit.

First stop – Panama Hat Factory. This was awesome. We got to see where they made and dyed the hats. We also got to see them actually pressing the hats into their shapes. Of course, we all had to try on and buy hats there too. Next, we went to the top of this hill where we got a view of the entire city. You could see for miles and miles. I was in awe. Luckily, we were able to visit a lot of these places during our walking tour that afternoon.

Beautiful view of the city. The three domes are the domes on the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

After our bus tour we were dropped off went to San Sebastian Plaza. Of course, I was extremely excited for this. Saint Sebastian was my Confirmation saint. The Church de San Sebastian was extremely beautiful. It caught my attention and I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. We continued our walking tour throughout the beautiful city and saw many churches along the way. The pictures don’t even begin to do my experience justice…