DAY 25: Being in Cuenca, Ecuador's third largest city, is like being in Old Spain. With its well-preserved Spanish colonial houses and cobblestone streets, it's no wonder it was declared a World Heritage Site in 1999. The red-roofed houses, the plazas and cathedrals make it one beautiful city with -- I later discovered -- beautiful women.

Pepe and I went out for breakfast and then wandered the maze of streets. We walked through the main Plaza, the Parque Calderon, with the Old Cathedral on one side and the grander New Cathedral on the other. Inside the Iglesia Santo Domingo, elaborately painted walls led up to an alter where the Virgin Mary was dressed in traditional Andean clothes.

PEPE CHECKED OUT OF OUR HOSTEL DORM because his bed was too short for his tall Dutch body, and moved across the street. His replacement in the room was a vegetarian vagabond from Oregon, who had been on the road for sixteen months already with no immediate plans to ever return to the States. After spending seven months living in little villages in Central America, he had come to the realization that his life's calling was to provide fresh vegetables for the peasants so they could have a "proper diet" other than just meat and corn all the time. He had a whole plan laid out with obtaining seeds and distribution and so forth and was determined to better humanity.

He got me thinking: Shouldn't I be on some lofty crusade to help better humanity instead of wandering around to get into adventures so that I can make daily blog entries? Shouldn't I be out changing the system instead of just being a tourist?

These thoughts lasted about ten seconds and I went on my way to explore the sites. (Perhaps some day in the future.)

I BUMPED INTO PEPE on the street at random, and since neither of us had an agenda, we accompanied each other in our wanderings of the city. We walked out to the uncrowded plaza near the Iglesia de San Sebastian and then to the crowded weekly Thursday market. We saw a small, unimpressive collection of Incan ruins on the outskirts of town and then wandered back to the Parque Calderon, where salsa music played softly on the park's speaker system. Pepe sat back on a bench and smoked a cigarette as two indigenous women ran by in their big shirts and felt hats.

THE TEATRO CASA DE CULTURA is an art film house in town which shows indie films from the international film set. On the mezzanine level of the lobby is a cafe/bar, where Pepe and I sat for a drink. I was telling him about my daily blog.

"I sent out a story today as well," he said.

Pepe was also a former dot-commer turned aspiring-travel-journalist who was also keeping a blog for an audience back home in Holland. He too was writing stories and taking photos in hopes of making a living of it one day. It's funny the people you meet on the road; you often find mirror images of yourself from parallel Bizarro dimensions.

(Pepe's site is at http://home.planet.nl/~lucke050. It's in Dutch.)

The lobby of the theater started filling up with people and it started to look like a big premiere of a new film -- except without the red carpet or fanatics yelling out "Big fan, big fan." Pepe and I did some investigative journalism and discovered that we had stumbled in on a beauty pageant that the universities of Cuenca were having. Gradually more and more college students filled the lobby to cheer on their female classmates.

"Alright, now I'm excited," I said. This was much more interesting than planting crops in Central America! What better way to better humanity than to watch hot college girls strut their stuff on a stage?

Yes folks, I'm a guy.

We tried to get in the entrance near the cafe, but were denied with our lack of tickets. But we managed to sneak in through a door on the orchestra level and eventually made our way near the stage. We made ourselves look like press photographers.

The event started with a college cover band that, out of all people to cover, performed Avril Lavigne songs. Then, one by one, contestants strutted up on stage in sexy outfits as a computer projected their stats and zodiac signs on the wall. There were about twenty girls -- all beautifully stunning -- aging from 17 to 28, and Pepe and I joined in with the crowds as each section cheered for its home girl with sparklers, drums, noisemakers, banners and signs. At times it felt like we had stumbled in on a soccer game.

The evening gown competition came after, followed by the impromptu interview. Questions ranged from pre-marital sex to which is more important, love or money? Judges at the front desk took notes as audience members clapped in approval like someone had just given a "good answer" on Family Feud.

Pepe and I were getting our cameras ready for the swimsuit competition -- how could we continue to blend in as press photographers without shooting pictures of girls in bikinis? -- but the competition ended there. Based on the interview, three finalists were chosen, followed by two runner-ups and a winner (picture above). The theater crowd cleared out pretty fast after that, but afterwards we joined a new crowd gathered at the Parque Calderon, and watched a live band play traditional Andean music through the night that wasn't so "complicated."