Inside the cavernous marble interior of the Catedral de la Immaculada Concepción in Cuenca.

An Andean woman praying within the Catedral de la Immaculada Concepción.

Catedral de la Immaculada Concepción.

Cuenca has more churches per capita than most any other Ecuadorian city.

Outside the Catedral de la Immaculada Concepción.  

Zaven Vardanyan from Armenia conducts La orquesta Sinfónica de Cuenca during its Jóvenes Soloistas (Young Soloists) concert in the Iglesia del Sagrario.

After the concert, I walked back to greet and compliment him in Armenia.  He was utterly floored that he not only heard his native tongue in faraway Ecuador, but that a six-foot Chinese guy was doing the speaking!!!

We had to of course speak in Spanish.  He asked how I knew Armenian.  I  replied that I knew people in Glendale, CA.  As I mentioned that, he immediately nodded his head, knowing that Glendale has a large Armenian population, and then mentioned that many people knew him there.

Señor Vardanyan teaches at the university in Cuenca.

Photo by Lorenzo from Nectarphonic.

I can't remember what building this is, but ain't it purty?  Yes, it's in Cuenca.

Yesterday, we visited churches, hospitals for the spirit.

Today, we visited a hospital for the body.

Inside was a museum.

This is a sign for Museo de Historia de la Medicina.  But you knew that, didn't you?  And I'll bet you knew that it was a Museum for the History of Medicine, clever reader that you are. And I'll bet that you knew it was in Cuenca as well. 

Inside the Museo de Historia de la Medicina on 12 de Abril, where all manner of equipmenet - largely from the 1900s and beyond - were displayed on the second floor of a hospital.  We saw fascinating contraptions with large levers and buttons and knobs.

Museo de Historia de la Medicina in Cuenca.  

Museo de Historia de la Medicina.  This fine bed was used for surgery.  Will you ever speak badly of your HMO again?

As I wandered through the museum, I wondered how our hospital equipment would look to people only a hundred years from now, given how crude some of this equipment looked to us.

 Museo de Historia de la Medicina. Wow.