Cuenca: It means bowl, in Spanish

I don´t think Cuenca needs to be on your bucket list.

Robin Hood
Surely no Men In Tights.  More importantly an utter aberration from the "rob the rich, give to the poor" plotline of yesteryear.  No, this takes a more Ridley Scott approach, a holier-than-though leader, lots of action, heroism, and starring Russel Crowe, as chivalrous as coats and mud and not farting in public.  

The classics all make an appeareance, from little John to Friar Tuck (who is most accurate to historical representation, thus most appealing to my sensibilities) and King John to the Sheriff of Nottingham, but many show up and remain in bastardized forms, including Robin himself.  The plotline is not all bad, though no Gladiator.  Unfortunately (and perhaps pleasantly) it was similarly structured.  War scene segues to main character development (hero worship?) segues to good beating evil (evil being the French in this case, which feels too easy, but is always enjoyable), all tied together with a few tedious Russ speeches motivating the hords of desperate-for-a-hero Brits.  The movie has its bright spots and, though not awful, it is simply "watchable".

Shrek 3:
Shit, or rather for the intended age group, poop.  Though not one for kiddy animation I admit that Shrek 1 and 2 were witty, dynamic, even enjoyable to my pessimistic palate.  Shrek 3 was simply not.

The Bucket List:
No Easy Rider and defintely no Shawshank.  Morgan Freeman was his always affable and likeable self, while dirty Jack has become creepier and more ridiculous over time (though he plays a rich egomaniac well enough).  It was touching enough, in a crispy creme donut kind of way, but not exactly a treatise on life and death as much as an hour and a half to waste with Jack and Morgan.

Why, might you ask, am I writing about movies?  Because we had our first DVD player, essentially, all to ourselves and access to an abundant selection offered by the hostel.  We watched at least six films in three days, and attempted to watch Inception, but failed because Kramer did a subpar job filming at the theatre (this leaving us with an unwatchable DVD).  Note: Ironically, films illicitly "shot", or so I would presume, contain the FBI warning letting all viewers know of the potential pitfalls of illegally distributing, obtaining, possessing or watching bootlegged DVDs.

Cuenca is a beautiful colonial town, perhaps the most well put together town from top to bottom that we have encountered so far.  No overtly poor neighborhoods, no shantytowns, no half-crumbled inhabitated unhabitable habitations, like an American (US) suburb in fact, red-tiled roofs and all, but more Catholic.  The funny thing about beauty, or at least obssessively constructed cleanliness trying to pass for beauty, is that it has a propensity towards the vapid.  This is to say it is unendearingly boring.    Thus, we watched films.  Some better, some worse, but a pleasure to catch up on a few summer blockbusters (some more bust than block) and finally, or eventually, get out of town.  A relaxing few days and a peaceful entrance into the much maligned Ecuador. (1)

(1) maligned by travelers in South America far and wide.  Not for its lack of beauty and culture, but for its more nefarious underbelly of petty criminals, and some not so petty.  Everyone we've  met who has traveled through Ecuador has been robbed; whether by knife, gun, distraction, pick-pocket or a slice of the old trusty backpack, it seems almost an inevitability.  Knock on wood.               

Searching for pictures...still searching...fine, this is a nice building.

We found this picture of me in Cuenca from 10 years ago and thought it would be a nice juxtaposition to current day Cuenca.

This picture doesn´t do this church justice.  We´ve seen LOTS of churches, and this was arguably one of the nicer ones. Well done Cuenca, you do churches and pirated dvd´s with the best of them.