| The Spaniards founded the city of Cuenca on April 12th, 1557,
in the same site in where previously the Cañari city was
located denominated Guapondelig that in native language means "Plain
as big as the sky";
Cuenca becomes independent from Spain on November 3rd, 1820.
Cuenca is located at 2500 meters above sea level, in Azuay province,
into the valley conformed by Tomebamba, Machangara, Tarqui and
Yanuncay rivers. Its average temperature is 14.6 °C, with
two predominant seasons, the rainy one (October-May) and the dry
one (June-September) with very typical climatic variants of the
Andes, throughout the year.
Cuenca's population exceeds the 200,000 habitants. Their craftsmen,
intellectuals and artists are just one part of this human group
recognized world-wide by their ceramics, straw hats (Panama hats)
and, the gold and silversmith's trade. The" Chola Cuencana"
is one of the most representative ethnic symbol of this country
and who still lives in this region. Cuenca's architecture and
its very well conserved cultural values have taken step to the
recognition of Cuenca like "Cultural Patrimony of the Humanity".
Also, 80 kilometers from Cuenca is located Ingapirca, It is a
cultural point . It was the stage of old civilizations dominated
by the Incas empire; from which many monuments still exists such
as castles and a variety of ruins.
(…)
I can tell you that Ecuador has so many beautiful places to visit,
but one of the biggest problem in my country are the corrupt governments.
Another important thing about my city is that families in
Cuenca are still close.
Eulalia
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Cuenca is a very beautiful city. We like to walk downtown,
visit churches,
stores and eat ice cream with our best friends.
When we want to do something different, we visit "El
Cajas". It is
a very big National Park. It is very quiet. You find a lot of
flowers and
trees there, and the most important thing is that it has more
than 200 small
lakes that you can visit.
We don`t like the traffic problems in our city. It is really
bad and the busses are so old
and slow. They are very noisy and dirty.
Chris and Carol
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Cuenca is a beautiful city, people are friendly, they
look happy all the time, so you can make lots of
friends. Cuenca has beautiful parks and downtown
you can find colonial buildings.
Christina, Vanessa and Isabel
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We love to live here because everything is near-by.
Cuenca doesn't have trains like cities in other countries, it
only has buses and taxis, the majority of them are old
and dirty.
Maris and Maria Augusta
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I like the education in the High Schools here but I do not
like that a lot of places
are not secure, 45% of the neighbordhoods do not have lights.
Vicu and Pesu
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This town is especially known for its handicrafts,
folklore and its beautiful rivers. On weekends, we
can visit small towns which are located near Cuenca,
where you can find many beautiful toquilla straw hats
(panama hats) , macanas (hand-woven shawls),
hand made leather belts and shoes.
Silvana and Liz
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The things that we don't like from Cuenca is that there
are too many cars. More than the rest of the cities of
Ecuador,so unfortunately this causes too much
pollution. Another thing is the weather because it
changes all the time. Sometimes it's cold and later
it's hot, but for us Cuenca is the best place in the
world.
Male and Vero
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SEPTENARIO is celebrated seven days (the week of
Corpus Christi), with traditional handicrafts, fireworks and sweet
pastry (dulces de corpus). During Christmas time, the
image of Child Jesus is offered to the homage of the
children and huge crowds with musical bands help to
carry the divine child through the streets an plazas
in a procession called PASE DEL NIÑO.
Raquel and Priscila
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We´d like to have more Commercial Centres because
Cuenca is growing very fast.
We hope you can come to Cuenca in the future and visit
us. Please bring chocolates.
Isabel and July
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