Viva Cuenca! - Independence festival, Cuenca, Ecuador, November 1 - 3 2010

We had planned our road trip in Ecuador around the 190th year anniversary of Cuenca's independence.  We hired a car from Quito and drove down stopping briefly overnight in Alusai.  The drive was beautiful and allowed us to see lots of Ecuador as we passed through farming villages, small towns, rolling hills and past the towering Cotapaxi and Chimborazo volcanos.

The celebrations in Cuenca were vibrant, colourful, peopleful and fun.  As you can see from the pictures there were some cool fireworks where the whole crowd participated in the show!  There were bands and different stalls and shows around the town including a go kart race.

Just like in Columbia, Ecuador has plenty of tasty and cheap street food on offer and being a festival as well there was heaps on offer.  The meat available was delicious: there are so many kebab varieties, including guinea pig!  There were varieties of ice cream, salchipapas, plantain and other tasty snacks.

In addition to the street food we found a really good schwarma shop/hole in the wall called Arabe Schwarma.  The chicken was cooked and flavoured beautifully, the price right and the man really friendly.  We even went back for seconds!