Cuenca Ecuador: Information City of Cuenca

Cuenca Ecuador
Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador and the capital of the province of Azuay.
Located in an Andean valley of the southern highlands of Ecuador, is the ideal place for
travelers looking to get lost and discover all the charm and cultural richness. Cuenca was
declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The architectural beauty of its historical
center with all its elements: churches, parks, colonial houses, cobbled streets,
archaeological remains and the gorge of the river Tomebamba.
Cuenca City of finding and maintaining contrasts traditional conservatism and reflected
in real cultural monuments like the Cathedral Cuenca, famous for its blue domes, and
especially for its Romanesque architecture, which glows gold and lavish marble delivery
the magnificence of this building that in its sector is among the best of America Hispania.
Data of interest
Region:Sierra
Province:Azuay
Latitude:2º 53’ 57" S
Length:79º 00’ 55"O
Climate:12º C a 25º C (50º F a 77º F)
Population:400.000 estimate 2008)
Foundation:April 12, 1557
Mayor:Marcelo Cabrera Palacios
Currency:American dollar
Predominant language:Spanish
Airport:Mariscal Lamar
Distance from Guayaquil:300 km. aprox.
Distance from Quito:441 km. aprox.
Information city of Cuenca

The city is also known as the "Athens of the Andes" or "Athens of Ecuador" for being the
birthplace of poets and great men. It possesses a rich cultural, historical, archaeological,
natural that projects only as an emporium of tourist development in the southern region
of Ecuador. His wealth scale is represented by the skillful hands of the people that
synchronized harmony transform natural elements into beautiful garments and objects
that are sought after nationally and internationally, in Cuenca denote their crafts and
painstaking hard work of people struggling day days to achieve excellence in the
products they make.
Cuenca is currently a strategic place from which you can undertake several interesting
tours and is divided into two parts by the River Tomebamba.
North Sector
In the north you can admire beautiful houses of the ravine by welcoming the old town
of Cuenca. In high sector, accessible on the hills, are located as on a balcony, residences
that combine architectural beauty with the prospects of the lower planes, where the
horizon looks dive which unites earth with heaven dear beautiful.
South Sector
In this area you can admire most of the new city, brand new, with large central pathways
and streets that offer complete comfort derived from the vehicular and pedestrian
traffic. This sector continues to the south, and is already found its outreach to other
immediate rivers, the Yanuncay and Tarqui, which came together within the urban area,
providing conditions to form an unparalleled amenity park with the beautiful hill of Turi
offered their hillocks so that there is another faction to raise timber lookout over the
city.
Tourists browse the various campuses of Basin and its adjacent localities, has to spend
time in this lengthy journey that, without anything, please meet your desires to see
something different in the sociological, as archaeological as urban, and especially on
progress towards goals of progress and modernity, do not fake tradition.
History of Cuenca
Cuenca’s history begins long before the arrival of both the Spanish and the Inca. The city
was originally a Cañari settlement called Guapondeleg and is believed to have been
founded around 500 AD Guapondeleg translates into “land as big as heaven.”
Less than half a century before the
conquistadors landed, the Inca, after a bitter
struggle, conquered the Cañari and occupied
Guapondeleg and the surrounding area.
Though the Inca replaced Cañari architecture
with their own, they did not exclude the
Cañari or their impressive achievements in
astronomy and agriculture. Rather, they
absorbed these elements of Cañari culture,
as was customary when they conquored
other cultures.
Shortly after the defeat of the Cañari, the
Inca commander, Tupac Yupanqui, ordered
Cuenca’s Catedral, one of many colonial
the construction of a grand city –
churches in Cuenca
Pumapungo, “the door of the Puma” – whose
magnificence was to challenge that of the The New Cathedral (Catedral de la
Inca capital of Cuzco. Indigenous people told Inmaculada) dominates the plaza.
the Spanish conquorers stories of golden
temples and other such wonders, but by the time the Spaniards found the legendary city
of Pumapungo, all that remained were ruins, leaving the Spanish to wonder what
happened to the fabled splendor and riches of the second Inca capital.
After being abandoned by the Cañari and then the Inca, Cuenca was sparsely populated
until the 1550’s. The Cuenca that exists today was founded by the Spanish in 1557, which
was relatively late, considering southern Ecuador’s other major city, Loja, was founded
in 1548.
Cuenca’s population and importance grew steadily during the colonial era and reached
the peak of its importance in the first years of Ecuador’s independence; it became the
capital of one of the three provinces that made up the nascent republic, the other two
capitals were Guayaquil and Quito.
Living and Retiring in Cuenca
In the last several years, Cuenca has become a major destination for retirees looking for
low cost, high quality lifestyle. Most retirees find that they can in fact live off of their
fixed incomes. Restaurants in Cuenca are of excellent quality, plentiful and quite cheap.
Strolling the colonial streets, riverside paths, visiting colonial churches and escaping to
the andean countryside (especially Cajas National Park where there is
excellent hiking and trekking) are all fulfilling, free activities. Exploring Cuenca’s
museums is very affordable and an excellent way to relive Cuenca’s rich history.
Where Cuenca has become expensive is costs of buying a house or apartment. Prices
now are in the $900 per square meter ($90 per square foot) range, making it more
expensive than Quito, Guayaquil and many small cities in North America. The locals
normally blame expats for the relative real estate bubble that has developed in Cuenca,
as it has clearly affected local real estate prices.
Cuenca’s Climate
Like most of the rest of the Ecuadorian Andes, Cuenca enjoys a mild climate year-round.
Days are generally warm and nights are cool enough that you should pack a sweater.
The average daily temperature is 14.6 degrees C (58 degrees F). The rainy season is the
same as Quito’s and generally lasts from mid-October until early May. During this time,
mornings are typically sunny and afternoons cloudy with light, periodic showers.

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