Cuenca & the Southern Highlands - Adventure Guide to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands - page 203

Cuenca except on Saturday, when there's no afternoon flight, and
Sunday, when there's no morning flight. Expect to pay up to $60.
Fights to Guayaquil cost slightly less than $30. SAETA also has a
desk at the airport, 7-804-033, and downtown at BenignoMalo 7-35

and Córdova, 7-839-090. To reach Loja, TAME, offers flights be-

tween Quito and La Toma airport in Catamayo, which is less than 20
miles west of Loja, 7-573-030.

The bus terminal in Cuenca, on Av. España close to downtown, has
numerous daily departures to Quito, Guayaquil, and Loja. Other de-
partures, such as those to the southern Oriente, are a bit less fre-
quent. Inquire at the station information desk. By bus it takes 8½ to
10 hours to travel between Cuenca and Quito, depending on road con-
ditions and weather. The trip to Guayaquil takes four hours, more or
less. The bus ride from Guayaquil to Loja takes about nine hours.
Buses between Quito and Loja take 12 to 14 hours and stop at all ma-
jor points in between. If you have your own automobile, the Pan-
American Highway offers a fairly simple ride. It takes about eight
hours to travel between Quito and Cuenca.

Visitor Information

Azogues
Azogues, the capital of the Cañar province, has a bank ,
telephone office and post office just off of the central
plaza at Bolívar and Serrano. The church lies just to
the south. A few blocks to the northwest is the bus ter-
minal, on Av. 24 de Mayo and Mayo (where the Pan-
American Highway cuts through town).

Cuenca
The Ministerio de Turismo office, on Córdova and Benigno Malo,

7-839-337, [e-mail], provides helpful information
and an artisticmap of Cuenca that highlights all of themain churches
and provides a nice layout of the city. It's open Monday through Fri-
day from 8-12 and 2-4. The Associación Hotelera del Azuay ,
Córdova and Padre Aguirre, /fax 7-826-

301, offers information on hotels in the area. The Ministerio del
Ambiente (Ministry of the Environment), at Bolívar 5-33 (third

7-821-659 or 7-836-925,