“We ride!”
Cuenca is so Catholic even the murals give guilt trips.
Who Consumes Who?
2×4 FROM TWO BY TOUR: CUENCA STREET ART PT. IV
Hey kids, rock and roll
Whoodeewhoo
2×4 FROM TWO BY TOUR: CUENCA STREET ART PT. III
Breathing new life into dead structures
2×4 FROM TWO BY TOUR: CUENCA STREET ART PT. II
IF YOU LIVED HERE YOU’D BE HOME, BYE NOW
We rode in silence along the city’s Northern ridge. Our hands lightly clasped, but our eyes stayed fixed on the city, our stillness a permission allowing each other the space to savor our last few moments in our own way. For two months, we had been drinking Cuenca in. Our glasses had been all but emptied. We swirled the last lingering drops and took a final swig.
Layers upon layers
2×4 FROM TWO BY TOUR: CUENCA STREET ART
AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE A JESÚS PARTY
Ecuadorians’ adoration of fairs and festivals is only surpassed by their devotion to Catholicism. Subscribing to the Catholic credo that there ain’t no party like a Jesús birthday party, these passions intersect in a three-month celebration around the Christmas holiday that exceeds the birthday week excesses of the most self-indulgent sorority girl. Cuenca is the heart of these festivities, upstaging the larger cities of Quito and Guayaquil to draw people from all across the Andes.
PEDESTRIAN PERSPECTIVES
For them, we were the ones out of place, two gringos staring at a marred wall. Cuenca’s dichotomy of modern and classical, of conservative and rebellious, so unexpected to us, was an an all too mundane part of life for its citizens. Their love for the city had settled and grown comfortable, the recollection of its charms reserved for special occasions. But we were barely acquainted with this place, learning its quirks and becoming ever more intrigued by each discovery into its complicated nature.
