I spent a few days in Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador. In the central downtown area the streets are lined with cobblestones and there are numerous parks, museums, churches and cathedrals throughout. The rest of the city is mostly charmless, with the streets being indistinguishable from each other, the same clothing shops, pharmacies and bakeries seemingly endlessly repeated .
An hour out of Cuenca is the small town of Giron, where I visited the 'El Chorro' waterfalls. The falls are 6km outside of town but it was a nice walk in the hot sun. It was great to sit at the base of the falls with a gentle spray of water cooling me down.
A few days was enough to see all there is in Cuenca, but it was nice chilled place to relax for a few days.
More photos
here
