Cuenca Bound

April 22, 2012

Todd and I both need extensive dental work/oral surgery done, and we deliberately waited until after our move to Ecuador to do that. 

Ecuador has good medical and dental care available, at affordable prices.  We did a lot of asking around, with those who have had work done, and through the various expat forums. We decided on a dentist team in Cuenca that came highly recommended by a number of people, including a native Cuencana girlfriend of ours, whose family has used them for years.

Guayaquil is closer, and obviously more convenient for the on-going procedures we will be undergoing for the next couple of months, but we chose Cuenca because of its reputation for having the most modern and up-to-date technology and more competitive pricing than Guayaquil.  We also chose Cuenca because neither of us has spent any time there, and figured it would be a fun place to explore, if and when we are NOT flat on our backs recuperating from the fun stuff coming up.

                                                                                                                                                                                

Our initial consultations were scheduled for last Monday morning and we headed to Cuenca on Sunday to spend Sunday and Monday night there (and prepared to spend a couple of more nights, if needed). Because we both need a lot of work, we are grateful to our primary dentist in helping us coordinate our appointments and maximize every visit to Cuenca for this purpose.

                                                                                                                                                                                

It is surprisingly easy and cheap to get to Cuenca from Olon. We caught the 9:45AM “CLP” bus at the Olon station (virtually across the street from our current rental home) for $5.50 each to Guayaquil. The “CLP” buses leave about 5 times a day between Olon (and also from the Montanita station) to Guayaquil, and we recommend you buy your tickets in person a day or two in advance. It’s a three hour trip on comfortable/air-conditioned buses. We got to Guayaquil at 12:45, in plenty of time to catch our 1:15PM reservations on one of the many/(hourly?) vans operated by “Operazuaytur” departing regularly between the two cities.

The “Operazuaytur” office is only a short distance/$2 taxi from the GYE bus terminal. The cost per person is $12, the vans each fit 7 passengers and luggage, and it’s a beautiful 3-hour drive to Cuenca through the “Parque Nacional Cajas”. We made phone reservations ahead of time (some Spanish speaking ability advised), but we think that on most days, one could just show up at either their GYE or Cuenca offices and catch the next van to fill up (as near as we’ve been able to determine, there is no “set” schedule for these vans)...So, in short, our travel time was around 7 hours total to get from our door to a hotel check-in and expenses amounted to $17.50 each (not counting the “sanduches de chanchos” we pigged out on at the Guayaquil bus station).

We have many friends and acquaintances in Cuenca and in particular, Karen and Randy Kimbler (“Kimbler’s Exit to Ecuador") invited us to stay with them during our visit (thanks, guys!), but Todd and I wanted the opportunity to check out some of the Cuenca hotels on our trips to the city, and to perhaps enjoy a few mini-vacations with “hotel-pampering”.

...When I say “hotel-pampering”, I mean that we’re pretty sure there is a likelihood that after our appointments, one or both of us is going to want to do nothing but lay in a bed, gargle salt water, and commandeer the satellite TV remote control.

We’re sorta thinking we could easily wear out our welcome quickly with our Cuenca friends using that M.O.....

So, we did a little math, and budgeted in extra money for rooms in the $40 to $60 range we hope to find with comfy beds, good reading light, and yes...with satellite TV mollycoddling, if need-be for future visits that could be for as long as a week at a time.

In-room wi-fi would be a considered a bonus.

We arrived in Cuenca on Sunday afternoon and made headway to the Hotel “Villa Nova”, which has nice comments on Trip Advisor, and other recommendations from many. It’s located along the Rio Tomebamba, next to those iconic killer-ass steep steps towards the nearby historic/Colonial/Church district around “Parque Calderón.”   We were checked in by 4:30, with some time to explore a little bit of the city before dark. The Sunday afternoon check-in staff was friendly, and a few spoke ingles.

But, frankly, we were disappointed in our room. It was windowless, dark (one tiny bedside light between two twin beds, plus a dim overhead), the cable TV wasn’t working, nor was the wi-fi that was assured during check-in. Cuenca tap water is generally considered safe to drink from the faucet, but there were no water glasses in the room, nor was there a bar of soap (which we discovered the next morning as we were getting ready for our dentists’ appointments, while the toilet was gushing stinky water from the bottom seal after a flush, about the same time Todd was standing 4” deep water in a shower that was not draining).
The morning staff didn’t seem too concerned about the 2” of water overflowing into the bed quarters, though Todd and I were frantically moving luggage and laptops onto higher ground.

The Rio Tomebamba in the foreground.
The Villa Nova is the brown hotel
to the left of the large white building.

In all fairness to the Villa Nova, maybe we just caught them on a bad day. We showed up on a Sunday afternoon, without reservations right on the heels of a busy holiday weekend (“Festival of the Virgin”), but we felt that $55 was too much to pay for such a cheerless and charmless room. We boogied out of there as fast as we could after checking-in, to explore the Parque Calderón area before dark, and to find another hotel room for the following night(s).

Cuenca is a beautiful city (and a World Heritage Site because of its many churches, Spanish colonial architecture, and numerous cultural museums and historic locations). Todd and I spent the next couple of hours poking around the center of town; I think the churches are even more beautiful at night, when they are lit-up (unfortunately the night photos we took that evening don’t do them justice).

Eventually, we wandered into the “Hotel Inca Real” (on General Torres, between Mariscal Sucre and Av. Simon Bolivar) for a drink and a bite to eat at the bar/restaurant located there.

The ambience of the Hotel Inca Real was warm and inviting, the food was GREAT (a reasonably priced menu that includes a large selection of yummy, yummy tapa hors d’oeuvres; the staff was stellar, gracious, and accommodating (in particular, Pablo). They let us check out a couple of the spacious rooms (impeccable, with satellite TV, comfortable beds) and, and we quickly slammed down our money to reserve a room for the next night ($70.79 to be exact, and well-worth the extra $15 over our planned budget). It’s in a great location, the hotel is around 200 years old, and has an interesting history too.

The lobby of the
Hotel Inca Real

We’ll probably still check out a few other hotels on our visits to Cuenca, but for now our money is on the Hotel Inca Real, and we have reserved a room for at least several days this coming week, when we will be returning there (and our check-out clerk mentioned to us that if we needed to stay a week/paid in cash, a discount offered). 

The flower market next to the
Santuario Mariano

We really like our primary dentist (who speaks English, thankfully, because our comprehension of medical Spanish sucks). We had back-to-back morning consultations, starting at 9:00AM, needed to walk a few blocks during those to another office for quick x-rays (more or less along the picturesque Rio Tomebamba-view sidewalks – an unexpected treat). The x-rays were processed within 15 minutes, and we walked them back to said primary dentist. By noon or so, we had several written estimates to choose from. The Ecuadorian cost of these dental procedures is probably about a third of U.S. quotes and we feel we are in good hands.

In future posts, I will go into more detail about specific costs and our experience with our chosen dentist, because it looks like we’re going to be spending quite a bit of time in Cuenca.

I really enjoyed the colorful and creative
ways the construction barriers were painted.