Cuenca

Monday 2nd June

We spent today walking around Cuenca Its a pretty enough town, but no more so than others. The Cathedral is quite impressive, the Museum of Modern Art isn't. Somehow museums in South America just don't measure up.

Cuenca has a decent amount of restaurants and shops but doesn't seem to have too many tourists. The locals do seem much more westernised than in most places in South America, except maybe Miraflores in Lima and Santiago. I think it is the dollar influence. Also the majority of foreigners are US for the first time, definitely a result of the dollar. Its not only tourists, who don't want to have to change money, but even businesses are US owned, I guess because there is no currency risk.

Obviously we are pining for a bit of western efficiency after weeks in South America as we found a really good english language second had bookshop which was owned by a nice American women, and a really good sushi restaurant also US owned. These places had lots of change and knew how to implement good customer service. This is so unlike other businesses in South America which sometimes frustrate you because of their lack of customer service (although not the hotels).