Cuenca, Ecuador is about a 4hr~ drive from Guayaquil, Ecuador. Oh my, it was an extremely long drive. The road to Cuenca [pronounced: Cwenka] took us up a large mountain range; so as you can imagine the road was constantly twisting and winding. Not to mention, the weather was not the greatest, leaving our bus driver to maneuver the twisting roads in heavy fog and a light drizzle. If anyone has ever driven up a mountain, the air gets extremely thin so some of our group members were having trouble breathing and it definitely got much colder. Sadly, most of our group did not know that… so, I was wearing shorts, a cardigan and a light raincoat. My poor clothing choices did not help that we were in 40degree weather.

Before we arrived in Cuenca, we stopped at El Parque Nacional de Cajas, Cuenca (The National Park of Caja, Cuenca). El Parque Nacional de Cajas, Cuenca is a national park in the highlands of Ecuador, just 30minutes outside of Cuenca. It is known for beautiful landscapes and scenery. I have never seen such an amazing view of the mountain range, lakes, and various cows and alpacas roaming the premises. At our quick pitstop, there were a lot of other tourists that came to hike the trails of El Parque Nacional de Cajas, Cuenca. Unfortunately, we were unable to hike the park because most of our group were wearing shorts and the wrong shoes. We were able to snap some beautiful pictures of the area! I hope to return and eventually have the chance to hike around the park!