On our daily jaunt this morning I saw something for the first time since we've been here. There was a man who had just finished doing his laundry in the river; now this is nothing unusual although it is usually women. What was unusual was that after doing the washing he had stripped down to a pair off shorts and was basically taking a bath; he lathered himself all over including his hair, with soap and then rinsed himself off in the river. (I got a picture but he was almost done by this point). Not something you see everyday in San Diego. At least he kept a pair of shorts on, last week when we went to the Feria Libre I saw a penis. I have been too traumatised until now to write about it, but as we were walking to the market a man was taking a pee on the road below ours and I saw everything; I hope that's the last one I see for this trip.

Mike: I hope not!


After watching the bathing we walked along the Tomebamba river (I don't think I mentioned it but this means valley of knives) and went to a new place for lunch called the Inca lounge. It's a cool place run by an American and they have some excellent food. We both ate veggie tacos with fritters, and our tacos had about 20 different veggies in them, some of which I recognised others I have no clue what they were but they tasted good. We chatted to Mike the owner for a while (we were there a long time as the food takes forever to come out) who was really nice (for an american!), and we'll definitely be going back for more food, and maybe to watch the NBA finals as they have lots of veggie options.
We walked back up the other side of the river after we ate and stopped at a little shopping center that we'd never been in before. They had some neat little crafty shops full of things that are made here in Cuenca like pottery and wooden items. As it was such a hot day we decided to have an ice cream at the little heladeria in the center and it was just lovely sitting outside and watching the world go by. Cuenca I think has more ice-cream shops than it has churches, and that's saying something. Having an ice-cream shop on every corner is definitely a good thing on a hot sunny afternoon, especially when the ice cream is as good as it is here.

Mike: Ummm! Nice Ice cream!