January 29, 2026
We headed to the airport bright and early and our flight to Cuenca was delayed a bit. Boy do I love that we always have lounge access. It really makes hanging out in airports less annoying. The flight itself was uneventful and less then an hour in the air. The tour company had arranged pick up for us in Cuenca to take us to the hotel, so that was lovely, and even though we were there a few hours before check-in time they let us in early, so also nice.
The airport in Cuenca has this cool miniature of the most popular site in Cuenca.
We dumped off our stuff and took an Uber to the historic district in Cuenca, had lunch and just wandered for hours. It was very chill.
First stop was the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. I do love me a cathedral and this one was lovely. It’s really the landmark site of Cuenca. It has beautiful blue domes.
We went to a great restaurant for lunch. The decor was all kitchen utensils. I liked it.
Ecuador is known for it’s flowers. There are flower markets everywhere. There is a good chance that when you buy flowers here, especially for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day or any of the big holiday, that they came from Equador. So we strolled by a lot of flower markets. Also, chocolate. There was a cool chocolate restaurant that was…. hard to describe. Pictures of all of it below. And of course I found a goth shop.
What the hell is this?
THESE WERE THE BEST CHERRIES I’VE EVER EATEN.
We ended up having coffee at the little place we found and it was really great coffee. And this was going on outside on the street.
The Chocolate restaurant…
Based on a recommendation, we made a dinner reservation at a restaurant called Tiesto’s Cafe. The server recommended the tasting menu which was OMG amazing. There was so much food. It started with bread and 8 different dips. Then a creamy soup with shrimp, then grilled prawns, then coconut curry chicken, then beef tenderloin, and then dessert. And wine. And it all came to $100 for the both of us. It was insane. We pretty much needed to be rolled out of there. We managed to get into an uber and get back to the hotel, and just fall into bed. That was our first day in Cuenca.
