Cuenca Activities: Cathedral to Cajas
Climb the roughly 150 spiral stone stairs inside the New Cathedral’s bell tower and you land on an open terrace at eye level with three glazed blue-and-white ceramic domes, the ones that show up in every photo of Cuenca’s skyline. The nave below is free; the tower is a separate ticket, about $2 to $3, and takes maybe fifteen minutes each way. That split, cheap and specific rather than one flat admission, sums up how activities here tend to work: real Andean geography and craft, priced honestly, with almost nothing padded in for the sake of a longer list.
The cathedral and a real Panama hat
The three domes were shipped in as ceramic tile from Czechoslovakia and set above facades carved from local Tarqui pink marble, and the climb up the bell tower is the single best value in the city center for the view alone. Pair it with a stop at a working toquilla-straw hat workshop, since the “Panama hat” was never made in Panama; it originated on Ecuador’s coast and in the highlands around Cuenca, and the weaving technique earned UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status in 2012. Workshops like Homero Ortega walk you through grading raw straw, hand-weaving, bleaching, and pressing a disc into a finished hat on a vintage iron mold. A half-day city and hat factory tour covers both stops plus the Mirador de Turi in one afternoon; Homero Ortega’s own museum has current visiting hours if you’d rather go independently.
Trekking the páramo at Cajas
Thirty kilometers and about 45 minutes west, Cajas National Park climbs from 3,100 to 4,450 meters through high-altitude páramo tundra dotted with over 270 glacial lakes, gnarled Polylepis “paper tree” forest, wild llamas, and Andean condors. Entry is currently free, but every visitor must register in person at the Toreadora Visitor Center before setting out; camping needs a separate permit, roughly $4 per person, confirmed directly on ETAPA’s Cajas park page . Cuenca itself sits at 2,560 meters, already thin air for anyone arriving straight from sea level, and Cajas goes well beyond that into cold, exposed, fast-changing weather. Give yourself a day or two in the city before you hike, dress in real layers, and don’t treat the páramo like a casual afternoon walk. A full-day Cajas hiking tour handles the registration and the guide for you if you’d rather not manage either alone; our adventure sports guide covers the harder routes past Toreadora.
Mud baths and a hornado lunch
Eight kilometers southwest in the parish of Baños, natural sulfur-rich springs surface at 70 to 75 degrees Celsius and feed spas like Piedra de Agua, built around underground mud caves, red and blue clay baths, and Turkish-style steam rooms; check current packages on Piedra de Agua’s own site since offerings change. Back in the city, Pumapungo Archaeological Park preserves the stone foundations of an Inca sun temple alongside an ethnobotanical garden of over 230 native plant species, and the museum next door holds genuine Shuar ceremonial artifacts. Finish at Mercado 10 de Agosto for hornado, slow-roasted pork with blistered crackling called cuero reventado, served with llapingachos and mote; the market’s rival caseritas hand out free crackling samples to draw you to their stall.
Verdict: the cathedral tower is the best return on effort here, a few dollars and fifteen minutes for the view every other list leads with. Go early, before midday sun turns the terrace hazy, and confirm Toreadora’s registration hours before you commit to a Cajas day, since a closed gate cancels the hike, not just the paperwork.