Our Walk to Turi

Unlike most ex-pats, we don't do the typical "touristy" stuff.  We have been here for almost 3 months, and we finally walked up to Turi last Friday.   For those that don't know, Turi is a really cool looking church that overlooks the city of Cuenca.  Here is what it looks like up close:

I have some other pictures that show most of the area.

So we set off on foot from our apartment.  Thankfully it was cloudy, so it wasn't too hot.  Someone had given us directions to find the steps at the foot of Turi, but we had come to a crossroads and weren't sure which way to go.  And of course, our first choice was the wrong one.  So we backtracked and came to a road that looked like a driveway up to some houses.  Luckily, a Cuencan man was walking down the "driveway", so we asked him if this was the way to Turi.  He breathlessly nodded "yes" and pointed out that we would need to have some water to drink for our journey up.  So we started up and this was the first set of steps:

Phase 1

Then I decided to take a picture at each junction of the steps.  It reminded me of Disney World when you are standing in line to get on a ride and you think that you are ALMOST there, until you go into a new section and there are another SLEW of people standing in line.  You think you will never get to the front of the line.  We thought we would never get to the top of the steps.  See what you think:

I don't know if you can see the dog to the right of the steps.  He must be a wild dog because he would not come near anyone.  There was a huge green space here where he must live.

More steps...

And yet even more steps...

As we got higher, there were a couple of workers doing something.  We weren't sure exactly what they were doing--either digging to put in lighting or digging to install drainage ditches.

Almost there.......

I can see the end in sight!!

Look who was munching grass to the right of the top of the stairs!  You never know what you might see!

Our destiny----Turi!!!

It was quite a trek up the steps, but it was well worth it.  And it took us about an hour and 45 minutes from our apartment to the top of Turi.  When we finally got to the top, we saw some wonderful sights of the city.  We had even remembered to bring some binoculars with us, so we were able to pick out our apartment building, Mick & Kathy's apartment building, and some other buildings downtown.  Here a pretty good shot:

Mick & Kathy's building is part of that complex in the foreground.  Our building is further back by the Coliseo (I don't know if you can see the blue domed building by the second set of trees).  Everywhere you see a section of trees, there is a river.  The Yanucay River area is in the foreground and the Tomebamba River area is further back. 

This was a shot going down Solano Avenue(the avenue with the green space, trees and lights) toward downtown.  It was really fun to try to find things using the binoculars.  We even saw Clarke and Brennie's blue awning on their apartment downtown.

I am going to continue with more pictures tomorrow.  I took some nice pictures of everything else up around Turi, but I don't like to go on too long.  So those pictures are for tomorrow.  Hasta luego, Sue