Cuenca Day 1- Ecuadorians might be the nicest people on earth (continued)

After I settled into my room, Mercy told me that she would show me around the city. So the two of us, Juanita, and Luis piled into their old rusted SUV to explore. The first place we were going to visit was a neighborhood named Turi, which is famous in Cuenca for its view of the city. What should have been a 10 minute drive turned into over 20 minutes as I learned that Mercy, despite living her entire life in Cuenca, doesn't like to drive and doesn't know her way around very well. She explained that she loathed driving and usually only goes to places around their neighborhood or makes someone else drive. Although delayed, we all made it safely to Turi and the view was amazing. Cuenca truly is a smaller version of Quito but much cleaner and different monuments to pick out as you trace the skyline. It was pretty wind and cool so we decided to drive through the Old Town.

Mercy quickly became flustered with driving once again and couldn't make the U-turn necessary for our decent out of Turi. Luis is unable to drive due to back surgery and Juanita is only 2 years old so that left it up to me to get us back into the city. Being behind the wheel for the first time in another country was pretty fun and I was able to navigate us back down the mountainside. Mercy let me be the driver for a little while until we got back into the city and told me we had to switch back since I don't have an Ecuadorian license.

We drove by all of the sight seeing areas downtown, a few areas multiple times due to Mercy's slim knowledge of the city streets, but I didn't mind and sincerely enjoyed riding and talking with them. On our way back to the house we stopped by one of their favorite street vendors and bought some choclos, an ecuadorian staple that is similar to corn on the cob but eaten with cheese...delicious. After our snack Mercy let me drive the rest of the way back to the house and she told me that it was her husbands birthday so we would be having a big meal later in the evening.

When we got back Mercy pulled out some photo albums and I learned all about how she and her husband had met and other fun stories about their vacations and family gatherings. This really helped me settle in and it was fun to see pictures of Catarina when she was younger. Monica and her boyfriend Julio arrived and told me they were going to pick up some stuff for the party and I should come along so Mercy could prepare the food. We ended up repeating my city tour from earlier but it was completely different seeing all of the churches and streets lit up.

We arrived home just in time for dinner and I met Juan, the birthday boy, and both of his parents. The food was great and their family was fantastic in terms of conversation. After dinner we sang a very interesting version of happy birthday that had Spanish and English verses (which was funny because no one in their family speaks english) and ate some delicious birthday cake.

At this point it was almost midnight and I was exhausted from traveling and being awake for almost 20 hours so I headed off to bed. Right before I went to my room they informed me that the whole family was going to take me to the Inca Ruins the next morning! I was tired but excited as to our adventures to come.