Kookaburra Cafe & Accommodation

About staying at Kookaburra....

Welcome to Kookaburra Café and Accommodation

The 'Kook' offers friendly and safe accommodation on Calle Larga in the heart of Cuenca’s historic center. Calle Larga (Long Street in English) begins at 10 de Agosto, an indigenous food market, and ends at Pumapungo, the Incan ruins of the Puma Gate and one of Ecuador’s largest national Museums.  In between you will find several privately run museums as well as many small restaurants and galleries. The main plaza - Parque Calderon and the domed Cathedral are three blocks north. 

Kookaburra is an old fashioned B&B where the owners live on site ensuring you have a safe and quiet stay in Cuenca. Once you’re here on the ground, we can also direct you to the services of several English speaking taxi drivers, tour guides and travel experts.

Guests can choose between either of the two mini suites that open onto the small second courtyard; the Queen is upstairs and the Twin Share is downstairs. Both rooms are bright and airy and have private bathrooms and kitchenettes.  The Café is open from Thursdays to Sundays, 8AM to 4PM, and is located toward the front of the building and the main courtyard, so while house guests have the convenience and solitude of their own space, they can also join in the convivial Café atmosphere as they choose.  

The entire building is a cigarette free zone and in the interests of all guests, we ask that you observe our quiet time from 9.30pm to 6.30am. We also ask that you bring your own headphones if you plan to listen to music or movies in your room.  At present, WIFI is available 24/7 in the common area but is unavailable in the suites.  Thank you for understanding that Kookaburra cannot accommodate children or pets.

Kookaburra’s kitchenettes have a table and chairs, an electric kettle, a microwave, sink, bar fridge and tea or coffee making facilities. For your convenience, you will also find crockery, a cutting board, fruit knife and peeler as well as flatware, a corkscrew and bottle stop.

Kookaburra’s rooms are serviced every three or four days according to your length of stay. We don’t offer a laundry service onsite but can direct you to nearby ‘same day’ services.  You will find that most laundry services in Ecuador do not offer ironing so pack accordingly!

Please browse through our photos to decide if you would like to stay with us. You'll find further information as you scroll down.

 

 

 

DAILY RATES

 Our daily rates include local taxes but not a service charge so if you enjoy your stay, please let your travel community know! Kookaburra has been ranked #1 in TripAdvisor's Specialty accommodation for Cuenca, since 2010.

Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Saturday – DOUBLE $64* SINGLE $49*

Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – DOUBLE $56 SINGLE $45

*(Hearty Breakfasts are included on the four mornings the Cafe is open)

RESERVATIONS

Kookaburra has a minimum 3 day stay. Please email us if you require further information about availability, stating clearly your check out date.  When you are ready to make a Reservation, we will send you a PayPal money request for a non-refundable deposit of either 20% or 50% of your total accommodation cost, depending on your length of stay. 

At this stage, and apart from the deposit, Kookaburra is a cash only business and we do not accept credit cards. You will find though that Cuenca has a number of conveniently located ATMs and banks.

GETTING HERE

Please don’t expect your taxi driver to know where Kookaburra is! It will be up to you to give them clear directions. The simplest way to do this is to say;

Calle Larga entre Padre Aguirre y Benigno Malo, numero nueve – treinte-ocho, en frente Ayax Travel.

(Calle Larga between Padre Aguirre and Benigno Malo, number 9-38, across from Ayax Travel.)

Kookaburra Cafe & Accommodation is in a white two story building on the left hand side of the road as you are driving with the traffic.  The building has dark grey trim.  If the Café is not open, ring the door-bell hard at #9-38.

A taxi from either the airport or the bus terminal will take between ten and fifteen minutes and should cost about $3. Tipping taxi drivers is not usual but if your driver is especially helpful, a 50c tip would be appropriate.

While we prefer to correspond with you by email, please take a note of our cellular number for last minute inquiries or should you need to contact us in an emergency.   0908 74 202

 We look forward to hearing from you.

KookaburraCuenca@gmail.com

CASA DE LAS PALOMAS: 100 Years of anything but Solitude

Despite its designation as a UNESCO World Cultural Treasure and its reputation as a Spanish Colonial jewel, Cuenca is actually a city of Modernity.  Each new epoch of the Modern World has left an indelible stain upon the city’s exquisite architectural streetscapes, a delightfully mottled veneer one could better describe as Eclecticism.  Charged with the listing of Historic buildings and more, the Institute of Cultural Heritage (INPC), Ecuador's premier Conservation body, has a number of diverse projects on the go throughout Southern Ecuador.  As well as restoring old mansions, they work on sites ranging from Nationally important rural Pre-Canari settlements to 'almost forgotten' Ateliers in the streets and laneways of cities like Cuenca.  
The INPC employs an array of Specialists from Sociologists to paint technologists and their Cuenca headquarters, located naturally, in one of the most unique Mansions in the city, is a hub of activity. Visiting this old Mansion, I am transfixed by the elaborate murals of its original owner, Artist, Joaquin Rendon Araujo. In its heyday, the Institute’s headquarters was a modern and highly individualized family residence built about 1910 and boasting the latest in brass finishings and European wallpapers. Senor Rendon hand painted romantic landscapes and figures upon stairwells and walls. And he painted Doves, lots of them, hence the building’s name, House of the Doves – Casa de las Palomas.  One of its most elaborate rooms overlooks Benigno Malo, and is floor to ceiling hand decorated pressed metal.  Imagine High French Court meets Spanish Republican Adobe in far-flung empire.

I step off the footpath and enter Casa de las Palomas' zaguan, or entryway, cobbled with river stones and ox vertebra. In front of me, in stark contrast to the dark arcade, I am struck with the vision of a cheerful sunlit courtyard garden. I don’t know when this garden bed was laid out but the flowers thriving there are ones you’d expect in an English Cottage garden – Cosmos, Hollyhock, Rose and Jasmine:  Sun worshippers every one of them!

From the ground floor of the Casa, I climb a solid wooden staircase that is decorated with a High Romantic Bavarian-like Pastoral narrative, to the next level.  I take the second door and enter a large and airy ‘French Court’ style Salon.  In this Artist’s folly of a house, I am enjoying the passing Colonial experience and the Vernacular of the Republican Era, as well as a little taste of La Belle Époque or the Age of Enlightenment.  It’s a satisfying experience for a Décor devotee.  From my perch, I applaud Senor Rendon, not for his Modernism but for his very proto-Postmodernism!

With his death in 1917, the Artist’s bohemian home began a long journey, passing through many hands, becoming in turn a casino, school, candle factory, drum factory and soft drink factory. I think it was a soft drink factory at the same time it housed the printing presses of el Diario del Sur, the Southern Daily.  Oh, and for another short while, it was Senora Aurora Calle’s Inn.

By 1987, now rundown but with promise, the house attracted the attention of the Institute’s first Sub Director, Susana Gonzalez, who raised sufficient funds with the help of the Central Bank and the National Cultural Council, to buy the building for the INPC.  Originally intended at that time to promote the study of Architectural Restoration, it has achieved that and more. Casa de las Palomas in the twenty-first century, is an Icon of Urban renewal. A visit to Ecuador’s Institute of Cultural Heritage has me thinking of how I can live and work from a more creative center where form and function serve each other well and perhaps like Senor Rendon, where form serves even that little bit more flamboyantly.  His house has certainly proved to be a remarkably versatile building and a popular site for commerce, advocacy and residential life, and that for more than one hundred years!

(While it's not officially open to the public, you may get past the guard... it's on the east side of Benigno Malo between Juan Jaramillo and Presidente Cordova. Don't say I sent you!)

Rock my world...

Legends are legends in any part of the world, it seems. This graffiti was photographed at Banos, just a short half hour bus ride from Cuenca. This next shot though is normally what tourists would focus on there.

The church. It's very blue and by contrast, the food is very golden.

...and street food is really tasty. This is a dish of roasted pork and fried potato cakes.

I took my parents there for lunch when they were visiting.

Supermarkets aren't big over here. It's great that food is still prepared from scratch and readily available to all income brackets. One of the most popular Latin American 'fast foods' is the Tamale.

We serve these Tamales in the cafe - they're from Susana's bakery and are a tasty and complete meal. Susana also bakes heavy loaves of baked grain bread.

 

We don't want to give too much away about our coffee, but it's good, some say the best in the country. Who am I to disagree? The beans are all grown in the Ecuadoran highlands and roasted in Guayaquil on the coast, by a family with their roots in Italy. It seems like the European roasting expertise really shows off the Ecuadoran bean. That's Chris making espresso on the Italian machine, Sibilla.

Teas are much more popular among the locals than coffee. This tea is called Horchata and, like Tamales, you'll find variations of the recipe throughout the continent. In Ecuador, the tea is made from fresh flowers and grasses and herbs like carnations and geraniums, amaranth, borage, cedron, chamomile and basil - so it's pink! It's drunk mainly for its medicinal properties. The nuns from the Mariana Sanctuary on the edge of the flower market here in the historic centre, sell their home brew from the tiny door in the wall of their convent. There can be quite a number of people lining up to buy a cup of the healing Horchata. No such miraculous qualities attached to our brew though but you know, it's never too late to start a good rumour. 

 

Happy Birthday to the Andes!

On the 12^th of April the city of Cuenca celebrates its birthday. At a little more than 450 years old, I thought that was quite, quite old until I turned my gaze westward toward the Cajas Mountains and realized I could finally use the word Jurassic in a sentence. Jurassic. That’s the period in which the Modern Andes we’ve come to know and love, began.  Before then, they were just all over the place waiting, I assume, for a little direction...  

So Happy Birthday Andes! How does it feel to be somewhere between 145 and 200 million years old? Give or take a million years? What? You only feel Cretaceous?   Ok, enough of the jokes but yes, age is relative and mysterious - and such great age is as always, a source of great beauty and great mystery and wisdom and above all, presence. GREAT presence. Take a look.....

These are the colours of Ancient lifeforms and of rocks and grasses in the Cajas National Park, way up there over 4000 meters above the crashing waves of the nearest sea. It's a funny name for a National Park, if you speak Spanish because it means 'boxes'. Some people think the mountains were named for these box shaped tarn lakes but those who speak Quichua claim the name means 'cold' - Caxa or even Cassa - 'Gateway to the snowy mountains'. Whichever, you get more of a feel for the place from the older inhabitants than from the blow-ins.

The Cajas are a significant area of Biodiversity. They're a designated Important Bird Area of the world and are also recognised as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. Tramping all over them, gently, lightly, you can sort of get an idea of that - they are indeed wet and highly populated with unique plant life, with birds and bats and pumas and possibly even bears. There used to be more bears but... you know how the story goes. There was definitely an Andean Fox around earlier in the week. 

From a distance, amongst all those 'ancient' hues, it's not easy to see how many bright, 1970's colours abound until you're right down on the ground and close up.

Where have all the flowers gone? They've all gone to the Cajas!

   

This one below, is called a Globito, a tiny balloon, the diminutive of the name of the large and colourful paper lanterns set adrift in the night skies over Cuenca on Feast Days and Birthdays and Sundays and other days. 

Yes, this Paramo, a word roughly translating to 'bleak landscape' is anything but. Like the tiny gentian flowers and bromeliads and deer-antlers hugging the slopes and blossoming among the sponge-like cushion plants, people also spring up, joyfully or puffed out or both, all over the National Park, on weekends, and holidays and days off.  'Time out' is needed from the bustling city, for, young and vibrant as it may be, it doesn't allow the eye to rest on fuzzy horizons, logical in their own Jurassic way, nor the foot to rest on carpets of wonderful creatures, things that our soles must surely yearn for. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Valentine's Day - Afternoon Soiree

If you're reading this and are actually in Cuenca on Valentine's Day - Sunday February 14, join us at Kookaburra Cafe between 2pm and 4pm to enjoy the classical guitar mastery of Paul, a talented traveller passing through the city. Paul played earlier today in Kookaburra's courtyard.

We've also mounted a new exhibition of photographs taken in Ecuador by Jesse Lewis. (check out his website!) All work is for sale so if you like what you see, you just order a print! The larger format photographs are $38. Jesse has also selected a range of smaller format prints of his work and these are only $5 each.

 

You are getting sleepier and sleepier...

...no, I am getting sleepier and sleepier! I feel like I'm in a dark movie, sitting bolt upright yet mesmerized, watching an old timepiece swing back and forward, somewhere no doubt in a mad psychiatrist's chambers in a building just like this ...  but no, it's not a nightmare scene from a Hitchcock movie! It's actually New Year's Eve and I was watching the full Blue Moon peeking out from behind spooky clouds racing over Cuenca's New Cathedral just before the midnight bell tolled. It was too, too Gothic for words: Suffice to say this picture paints a thousand of them though.

8am?

Why does Kookaburra Cafe open so early? We think dawn is a special time of the day to wander around any city, especially one like Cuenca.

Most of the handsome doors are closed which makes for great photo opportunities. Birdsong floats across the shadowy spaces like liquid perfume, wafting from rooftop perches and gnarly branches.

Anyone waking up early enough will be rewarded with silent and empty streets, deep shadows and virginal sunrays creeping across the old centre, the encircling mountains and the chains of trees hugging Cuenca's river banks. The memory of birdsong and churchbells will resonate throughout your day like silent affirmations.

... and after so much enchantment, surely a good coffee at Kookaburra would be the next order of the day!

A Cuenca Woodblock Print in Air

How wonderful to awake to a stripy sky. The patch of blue framed by the old clay tiles of Kookaburra's roof-line was as beautiful as a Japanese woodblock print. Chris and I are cloud watchers from way back and we still take absolute and shameless delight in sharing the mysteries of shape-shifting images overhead. Cuenca doesn't disappoint as a cloud capital with dawn and dusk the best time to turn your gaze upwards...

 

Tired, hungry and in Cuenca, Ecuador?

Hearty breakfasts, fry-ups, home made muesli, veggie juice, sweeties, BLTs, Espresso, Twinings teas, Agua Aromaticas and English language reading material!

Kookaburra Cafe at Calle Larga 9-40, between the streets, Padre Aguirre and Benigno Malo. 

Open: Thusday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday 8am-4pm

Kookaburra B&B, Cuenca: Affordable quality Accommodation in Ecuador

Kookaburra offers affordable, quality accommodation in the heart of Cuenca's historic district. A small city, Cuenca is manageable: A 'flaneur friendly' Latin hub where a daily stroll may take in the beauty of a fresh flower market and an hour in Contemplation beside the fast running Tomebamba.

The accommodation offered at Kookaburra Cafe is stylish and simple - clean beds, space to spread out, safe and cosy. Our refurbished, early 20th Century Casa is in the heart of town but by the time you close the heavy wooden front door, the vibrant bustle of Calle Larga recedes and the timeless tranquility of life around an old courtyard unfolds.  The Cafe, open Thursdays through Sundays from 8am to 4pm, is a great place to head out from. The city's major museums and attractions are all within close walking distance  and for the Region's more distant sites, we can put you in touch with tour operators and English speaking Guides.

 

Visiting Cuenca, Ecuador? It's not all about hats

Cuenca is home to the Panama Hat and its many Hat retailers and museums are kept very busy shading faces but in the big scheme of things, it's not all about hats. In November alone, visitors to the city can grab an authentic handmade sombrero and they can also watch a romantic movie at an Open Air Cinema set up on one of Calle Larga's grandiose Escalinatas. An International Film Festival is also in town if you prefer your movies the more conventional way. There are a multitude of cultural interventions taking place in the city as part of the Cuenca Bienal, from Design to Performance Art to Performance Bars! Be the art while you're having a beer... In fact you can even be an art lover on two wheels and join the 'Cycle Art', a cycling tour of all the best spaces.

...Cuenca Bling. UNESCO World Heritage Site

This is what Lonely Planet has to say about Cuenca-

"While Quito wins on grandeur, Cuenca takes the cake for beauty. Founded by the Spanish in 1557, Ecuador's third-largest city is the colonial jewel of the south. Red-tiled buildings, handsome plazas and domed churches line cobblestoned streets - all above the grassy banks of the Río Tomebamba."

...and if Cuenca is the Jewel in Ecuador's Crown, the New Cathedral, seen here (above) receiving some close up attention, is the sparkle in that jewel. Cuenca is one of UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage Cities and its Historic Centre is undergoing a revival attracting many global travellers interested in Architectural Restoration.