Monday 26th January 2026: Cuenca back to Quito
We feel like we have been in Ecuador forever, slowly heading further south. Ther'e lots more places that we would have like eo have visited here bu sadly time is not on our side. On reflection, and now understanding the distances and transport more, we could have packed more in, bit we might have been overwhelmed.
So today Kevin hauled our cases down the narrow and mostly bannister-less staircase of our Cuenca flat. Pretty quickly we found a cab and were on our way to the Terminal Terrestre. We were there an hour before our bus left, so sat in the Express Sucre's office watching the morning news.
Have you even seen the Fast Show's Channel 9? It's hilarious but a little too close to the radio and TV we have seen whilst here.
The news channel we were watching was from Guayaquil and it was very gruesome. Stories included car crashes, a pedestrian being knocked down by a bus (complete with CCTV video footage), and a murder in a gated community with close ups of the pools of blood. It's a lot more graphic than at home, and is interspersed with dodgy adverts claiming all sorts of miraculous cures for illnesses. There was recently a gruesome murder in the coastal region, where five severed hesds, less bodies, were found on a beach. Luckily that was olds news as, heaven knows, what they would show.
About 30 minutes before our bus was due to leave, we were ushered to the gate and our bags were loaded. We were warned about bag theft on coaches, but you get a ticket for your bags which you have to produce to get them out the hold.
We had demi-cama seats and, as always, the coaches are spacious. The usual sellers board with owls of rice and meet, fruits, snacks.... The journey from Cuenca to Quito is a long one so we settled in. The weather was mainly overcast and for most of it, we were in low cloud so there was little to see. Those pesky Andean volcanoes were well shrouded in cloud.
Some 9 and a quarter hours after we left Cuenca, we made Quito. There was a long cab journey back to the Old Town where we had booked into the elegant Hotel Real Audiencia, which sits on the corner of San Domingo Square. We had treated ourselves to a suite with a view of the Plaza, with its trolleybuses and ultra-long bendy buses.
We were now in what we called the Witching Hour. Travel guides tell you not to go out on the streets beyond 6pm but we needed dinner. Joan googled restaurants and found one close by which could be accessed by a short walk on streets still busy with traffic in the rush hour.
We headed out and it was only when we reached the restaurant, did we realise were were on the main square overlooking the cathedral. There were plenty of armed soldiers about, just to give us comfort! Police, army and private security guards here look very intimidating as they wear full face balaclavas with a slit for their eyes. However if you great them, they are consistently polite,even cheerful.
La Vid Restaurant was very swish. Possibly the finest we have been to in a while. And there we were, straight off the bus, unwashed and in travel clothes. But the staff didn't mind, or didn't say. Maybe the ability to pay makes everything good!
Joan had Encocado, and typical Afro-Ecuadorian dish from the coast, made with coconet, green plantains and yuca (cassava).
They put an unopened bottle of wine on the table as a hint. It was somewhat pricey but we went for a Chilean Carmenere, thought the sommelier tried to get us to upgrade.
It was all lovely and we walked home through the rainy streets. We had meant to take a few night time photos but there were a few undesirables hanging around our hotel so we headed inside.
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