With its cobblestone streets, beautiful buildings and nice temperature it is hard not to fall in love with this historic capital in Ecuador.
Unfortunately we arrived pretty late the first night, after a 2 hour bus journey from Montañita to Guyaquil and another 4 hours down to Cuenca, we felt exhausted. But it was the best feeling to get off the bus and it wasn't annoyingly humid and hot. I haven't appreciated fresh air like that in a long time and I was surprised that I for the first time ever, actually felt better to be back up on high altitudes (Cuenca is 2500 meters over sea level! Which is also why the bus journey was horrible, my ears kept popping during the whole journey!).
Anyway, arriving tired and hungry pretty late at night is never the ideal situation for a vegan. But since we stayed at a hostel which had the best location in town, wequickly realised that there was a vegetarian restaurant located near to us and according to Happy Cow - was opened during this late hour.
So we started a quick power walk past the park where, apparently, many people gets their phone stolen (still traumatized, but what don't you do for vegan food when you're starving?!) and when we finally found the place, it was shut. I almost cried and without internet connection, we gave up on trying to find another of the few vegetarian restaurants around in Cuenca and just did what I think every vegan would do in our situation - went to the nearest pizza place, ordered a veggie pizza without cheese and then smuggled in guacamole from the Mexican place next door (where their only veg-option was not available) to make it yummy and not dry.
We had the best nights sleep that night.
It is really a shame that we only got to have one whole day here really, I wish we had at least one day more. Many foreigners comes here to study Spanish, or to work and I can definately see why this is a great place to live. Walking around in Cuenca, felt like talking a stroll somewhere in Rome. It is so pretty and clean as well and we were close to trip and fall many times as it is impossible not to gaze up at all the cool buildings around the city. Not only that - we found that it is pretty cheap too!
Unfortunately it decided to rain on our day here, but we had time for a long walk and it was cosy to hide away from the rain in a little Italian cafe with a coffee and free ciabatta.
As I mentioned, there seems to be a few vegetarian restaurants around here but we were unlucky in our hunt for them. One was closed and the other was impossible to find, but we did manage to get some good food anyway.
We found a vegetarian restaurant called Quinoa Vegetarian Restaurant, with the most incredible interior.
I think we were the only people there because the price for food here was kind of expensive in comparison with other restaurants. A main ranged between $6-9, but there were lots of choices on the menu, even for vegans! I still regret not trying the quinoa paella with tofu, I mean when you are at a Quinoa restaurant you kind of have to have quinoa, and so, with my Ecuadorian dish, vegan-styled Guatita with soy meat, I felt obliged to order a hot quinoa drink which was better than the actual over-priced main.
Guy, my beloved English man, on the other hand, was super happy about his vegetarian English Breakfast with beans, vegan sausage, toast, grilled tomato, mushrooms, fries and yeah, you know the lot.
If you are as unlucky as us though, and cannot find those freaking vegetarian restaurants that are supposed to be around there somewhere, do not be dissappointed. Because, for the first time since travelling in South America, we found so many different Indian Restaurants here. So for our last supper, we ended up in Restaurant Taj Mahal, where they had plenty of vegan options and the best thing: a salad bar where you could help yourself to a plate full of popcorn!!!
We slept pretty well that night too.
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