Here are a few photos of my cute, sleepy baby. Pretty much the best thing in my life. Although I wish she would sleep through the night...

Cuenca has a few different markets. We finally made our way to one on Thursday. Grocery shopping is tricky for a few reasons: first, we can only buy what we can carry. 2. There are different ingredients than from what I'm used to. 3. It takes a good chunk of time to walk to the Super-maxi or the market, buy the food and walk home. In Quito, I would often stop in at the market on our way home from school. That was really easy to do. Here, we have decided that on market days, we will eat a meal at the market while we are there. 

This market is three levels and as soon as we stepped foot onto the "food court" level, a couple of women were immediately holding out meat from their pigs in their bare hands, inviting us, kind of forcefully, to have a sample. After we sampled, I felt obligated to buy, and buying eliminated the decision making process. And so we ate pork, potatoes, corn, salad and juice. It was great! I love the market experience. Next time we go to the market, I want to spend more time checking out the venders set up outside of the market.

I'm gluten intolerant and so are my daughters. And honestly, traveling can be a bit of a pain with this difficulty. Fortunately, a lot of packages will list what common allergens they contain. But still... it would be easier if I could eat anything! 

It felt like heaven when we went to a place called, Muu Yogurt (a total hole in the wall, but apparently very popular as all the tables were filled), and bought yuca bread and yogurt. The yuca bread is so delicious. My friend, Brooke, made it for us in Texas right before we came to Ecuador. It's $0.20 for one piece. And, it's something I can make when I get home. I found a recipe! Yuca bread is made from tapioca flour, cheese, eggs and milk.

We live close to the Museo Pumapungo. We only had a short amount of time to walk through some parts of the museum. It has art as well as exhibits displaying the lives of indigenous people. The museum also has Incan Ruins. We need to go back to enjoy the whole museum, but in the meantime here are some photos!

We have been in Cuenca for a week now. We first arrived on Sunday and Monday and Tuesday were a big holiday - Carnival. Unfortunately we timed everything all wrong. A lot of people go to the coast for carnival and in Cuenca, Carnival is celebrated with a massive water and soap fight in the central park down town the Thursday before Carnival. So we totally missed it! Our first few days here in Cuenca the city was so sleepy and it really threw me off! After being in busy, busy Quito for 2 weeks the contrast was huge and had me really worried. The market was closed and we had a couple interactions with locals that wasn't very positive. But no worries, Wednesday everything perked up. The streets are busy and there are lots of people out and about. 

So far, Cuenca has been good! It was very nice to go to church today and meet some people who live here. We spent yesterday with our new friends. 

We are happy with our apartment. It's much cleaner than the last and has a big patio balcony. We have hot water in the kitchen (!) and the shower isn't so finicky although I do wish it would get warmer than it is. We seem to have landed in a good location too.