hey everyone welcome back to our channel if you're new around here nicole and mico and
we've been traveling south america for about four months now most recently we've been in
ecuador and last week we were in puerto lopez checking out the beautiful blue footed boobies
this week we're in cuenca and we're going to be checking out all the sites tomorrow
but today is a special day here at the market we're going to be able to participate in a
special traditional cleansing procedure known as olympia
okay i think we found the ladies who do the lympias i think they're the women behind us
a lympia is like a traditional andean medicinal cleansing it's meant to cleanse you like spiritually
and physically so what we understand what happens in a lympia is you're going to sit
in the chair and then the women here are going to use like herbs and oils medicinal products
and to basically like cleanse you spiritually mentally by like hitting you with things rubbing
things on you i don't really know we're gonna see because mico's gonna give it a try in
a second here um but the idea is like to cleanse you spiritually and physically
from what we understand it's actually something that's done like as almost like a maintenance
program like a health maintenance program it's not meant to be done like only when you're
ill so many ecuadorians uh partake in this tradition as you can see because there's ladies
behind me here performing a couple days a week here at this market so the knowledge
to do a lympia is passed down generation to generation so the women who are here would
have been trained by their mothers to perform this treatment
i feel refreshed all the bad energies gone that was quite an experience i love the the
smell of like whatever herbs or things that they were using and then i did not expect
that there to be a full like massage too um that was really nice she cracked my neck and
i heard it really crack but i think but i think i think it's good and like the little
egg thing did you see that the little egg thing that she was using to like massage my
head one egg you're right yeah yeah she was using it to like massage the body that was
really nice but it's kind of cool because like she throws like all the herbs away and
all the eggs away and i guess that's because like all the bad energy has been absorbed
in those like plants and herbs and then you don't want to touch that again so she throws
that all away gets new ones for different people so it looks a little painful i don't
i don't think it was it wasn't very painful at all it was just like a nice massage it
was definitely your arm oh yeah the arm feels you know yeah no it was totally fine on a
scale of an ayurvedic sri lankan massage to a turkish bath it was definitely closer to
like a mellow massage it was good it was really good but you know nothing will ever top the
pain of the turkish baths Mico had a very painful turkish bath many months ago he's
not getting over it anytime soon glad you did it i'm glad you're thanks for taking one
for the team definitely check that out if you're in cuenca yeah and um we are going
to see you tomorrow which will be like 10 seconds for you we'll catch you tomorrow so
we can explore cuenca all right as promised we are exploring cuenca today we should have
said that the reason we did the lympia yesterday is because lympia's are only available certain
days of the week so if you're interested in getting one they're only available tuesdays
and fridays today we are headed into the main area the main square here in cuenca where
we're going to explore the city from so one of the first things you'll notice about cuenca
that's different than other ecuadorian cities is that it's got a very european feel like
the buildings are completely different than what you would see in like downtown quito
because we're in downtown cuenca right now and it looks like we could be like somewhere
in europe uh yeah like spain yeah it's beautiful it really is a very beautiful city i think
they consider like one of the most beautiful cities here in ecuador and once you come its
like, oh yeah okay i see why it's strange i don't feel like we're in ecuador but strange
here at like they call it parque calderon
it's like the plaza de armas i feel like every south american city has like a plaza de armas
but this is their version of it and it uh it lives up to its name
this is the entrance to the cathedral of immaculate conception or commonly referred to here is
just the new cathedral of cuenca let'd go inside
all right so we've popped out of the church it was gorgeous we're gonna see if we can
head up what's funny we got some bob marley playing here on the side of the church and
we got a whole bunch of other like kind of paintings some sidewalk art this person that
does like that whole stay still kind of thing i don't know what you call them statue artists
but yeah i think uh we can go to the top so we're gonna do that now okay so to go up the
cathedral and go check out like the domes from the top you pay two bucks and then go
up a bunch of stairs can i blame the altitude even we're not even at 3000 meters okay we
made it to the top it was a lot of steps but i think it's definitely worth it you get an
awesome view of cuenca uh we're now looking down at the park that we were at earlier yeah
call it something that we still can't pronounce um and yeah you just get a beautiful view
of the entire city and then like even like the hills behind it yeah it's honestly very
beautiful up here especially for two bucks well worth it to get a nice view point and
then behind us you can get a really um close look at those like blue domes um that look
so beautiful i think there's a spot down we'll see if we can get there later where you can
get a really nice picture of those blue domes but up here you can see like the detail and
the artwork really closely yeah and then funny enough you can also see that the the cathedral
isn't finished yet yeah so right above us over there is where it ends the original design
actually has it going like a lot further up like this church doesn't even have its own
like bells or anything like that i think they stopped construction for two reasons i think
they thought to because a) money and b) it wasn't super structurally sound so they put
this structure of i think it's the virgin mary up and when they put it up it actually
like cracked a huge chunk of the building and so i guess at that point it was kind of
like look we're just going to stop right here good enough and it sounds like they're just
leaving it kind of forever at this unfinished state i mean it's so gorgeous you honestly
probably wouldn't know it was unfinished if you hadn't read the sign
so we're by the cathedral just like around the corner you can come and get awesome views
of the cathedral from here like the the three beautiful domes and honestly the most important
point is that this square here is absolutely stunning there's like a ice cream shop here
there's an ecuadorian um cafe like a cafeteria you could eat at it's absolutely beautiful
though like it's just worth the visit just to come in and see how pretty it is cuenca
as you can see around me is not like your traditional big big city it seems like more
like a small town it's got about 600 000 people it's growing in terms of like attraction for
international tourists and we heard that there's a huge expat community here in fact in cuenca
it's actually famous that you can get a ton of different beers from around the world mainly
because of how many expats that are living in this area and influencing the kind of beer
culture here so cuenca is also known for a lot of like different handicrafts and overall
the the city itself has like a really nice like cozy warm vibe it feels really really
nice to walk around in and really safe too
welcome to the famous flower market here in cuenca apparently it is one of the top 10
flower markets um outdoor flower markets in the world you can get like pretty much everything
here and they're really really affordable but i think my favorite thing about being
here is it smells amazing ecuador is like one of the biggest exporters of flowers and
especially roses in the world so the roses here are like super cheap i think you can
get like a dozen or so for like less than two dollars or something like that yeah it's
super cheap so much so that like ecuadorians don't find giving flowers like as a sign of
like romanticness romanticness romance is the word he's looking for because like roses
here are so cheap yeah so you gotta go a little better than roses yeah i don't know what that
would be for an ecuadorian
if you're in cuenca come to the flower market just for the smell it's right next to the
cathedral the cathedral is literally right in front of us here so easy to get to okay
so if you know the name of this ice creamy fluff stuff please tell us what it is i read
about it because we honestly really wanted to try we see it everywhere ecuadorians eat
it all the time it's really cheap but i read that like as a foreigner it's best to maybe
stay away because the likelihood of getting sick is actually quite high for people with
not great stomachs like me mico could probably handle it but we are getting a really long
bus to peru tomorrow so i don't think it's worth the risk um but it's like a fluffy ice
creamy thing and like people walk around with it constantly but because it sort of sits
outside it's like not chilled and it's in the sun all day apparently the risk of getting
sick from it it's fairly high so i don't think its worth it for us today but it looks delicious
i don't know what it's called though so if you know please tell us i take all of that
back mico wants to try it so he's going to risk it and take one for the team
so she told me the name but i couldn't quite remember um but yeah so she has like a few
different flavors of the ice cream and then she put coconut shavings on top and then i
think it's grenadine on top look at that
let's hope this isn't a mistake before like 12 hour bus ride tomorrow right it tastes
like i'm just eating like cream like whipped cream
puff whipped cream with like strawberry flavoring grenadine and like fresh coconut shavings
it's all right it feels like it's got like like marshmallowy like look it's like sticky
does it taste marshmallowy kinda I'm actually so scared to try and get sick now there's
a leaf in there so no i think that's part of the coconut shell oh you think pretty good
though really good okay we've hit a square i actually have no idea what the square is
called the nice thing about cuenca honestly is that all of the like things you want to
see as a tourist are within a few blocks of each other like we've hardly walked anywhere
today we've seen so much already so we're in like the main kind of like markety square
there's lots of different shops up you can buy like clothes all sorts of stuff um yeah
it's like this beautiful plaza with it of course a very iconic cuenca sign which is
backwards right now but this is the cuenca sign and from here you can see where we came
from like we really haven't gone far because that's the cathedral it's really nice to like
use it as a landmark you always know where you are because you can pretty much always
see the top of the cathedral and they really stand out because they're bright blue
she's like she's such a tourist such
still still feeling that tourist kind of personality you know i think i've actually i'm owning
it more than ever before i'm just a tourist okay so there's like lots of little shops
here and stalls and if you ever want to come back home and tell everybody that you were
in south america without actually saying that you were in south america you just got to
pick up one of these bad boys and this is definitely one easy way to let everybody know
that you just got back from vacation south america actually though i obviously own one
i got one in bolivia in case you missed that video I had to get one
this is mercado diez de abril, no diez de agosto it is a market with everything in it
it's like a really classic typical ecuadorian market so it has like meat sections fish sections
um food like pre-made food sections fruits and veggies coffee and chocolate like it has
everything which is very very typical
okay so we've been at this market before and we have delicious food i've had this hornado
before and we'll show you more in our next video where we do like a full ecuadorian food
tour but this is something you have to get if you're in cuenca it's just as good as the
other day amazing what i love about eating at like ecuadorian markets is that like all
the stalls where people are like serving you food it feels like you're tasting like a family
recipe because like you've had this at a different place and it tastes slightly different than
it does today and um it's kind of because it feels like you're not walking into like
an established restaurant or anything like that it feels like you're walking into somebody's
kitchen and trying their food so definitely give it a shot if you can try different little
bits of food in different places and maybe the same thing again at a different market
because it'll probably taste very different anyways i'm just about done it's time for
nicole first thing is actually coconut juice because i've seen so many people eating it
around here on the market
hola gracias
lets try this humita first so we had i think they called it huminta in bolivia a while
ago it was delicious so it's corn husk and some sort of corn mixture inside i think the
one in bolivia that we had might have had cheese in it I dont think this has cheese
in it
oh it's a little sweet i was not expecting that wow it's quite yummy it is like literally
like mashed corn mixed with it almost feels like it's mixed with like um like a like made
into a dough with like flour and some i honestly think there's sugar in here it's really sweet
and very hot we're not the only ones having a really nice lunch right
now that's one lucky dog straight from the market not even the leftovers it's on a plate
and everything too
okay so we hopped in a cab because we really wanted to check out this museum it's called
museo pumapungo
i don't think we can take the camera inside but i hear there are shrunken heads we're
going to take a look around and then check out the gardens which are supposed to be beautiful
and that we can take you on
this is super cool their mouths and their eyelids have been sewn shut not their nostrils
though that's nice i guess this guy his hair is in his face for eternity he needs a haircut
very stylish shrunken head look at his feathers it's nice so the museum inside the museum
is pretty cool um really we went there for shrunken heads because everything's written
in spanish or french neither which we understand so we just really wanted to go to the shrunken
heads it's free to get in to public museums here in ecuador so it didn't cost us anything
to go in um so even though we don't understand anything if you're like us and you don't understand
spanish or french still worth a visit if you have a minute just to look at the very cool
shrunken heads
i don't know if this is a good style i think the kids now they put their sweaters around
their shoulders when they need to take them off so as you can see we are outside now and
this is the museum that keeps on giving because not only do you get shrunken heads but then
you also get these cool ruin right that's like right behind the museum it's beautiful
and at the bottom of the ruins is this awesome garden
so i think it's pretty awesome that this place is free but you can walk around these gardens
check out those cool ruins behind us and just like hang out here honestly just come here
for some peace and quiet go straight past the museum although you should check out the
shrunken heads and just relax out here because it is pretty peaceful i feel like you could
like bring a picnic lunch and just spend an afternoon yeah probably could gorgeous before
we leave you guys in this video we want to let you know that we have some really exciting
news we just started a patreon page so if you are interested in coming to check out
all the extra sort of behind the scenes and like updated travel content what's coming
up next for us go over to our patreon we'll link it in the description down below you
can come and see and decide if you want to get involved we're also going to do some like
live Q and As and we would just love to just meet more of you guys um on our channel yeah
we'd be so excited so thank you so much for coming around cuenca with us today we hope
you've enjoyed this beautiful city and we hope that this video was useful for you and
planning your next trip to cuenca if it was give it a like or maybe even a subscription
we greatly appreciate it yeah and we'll see the next one we're actually the next video
you're going to see from us is going to be a full tour of food across ecuador and then
after that you're going to meet us in peru which is where we are going tomorrow spilert
alert the food in ecuador is amazing it's amazing we'll see you there thanks for watching
oh no the dead end to the ruins how do you it's been so amazing hanging out here and
if we and we hope that if shoots you're doing great