Otavalo is just an awesome little town surrounded by indigenous villages that we grew to love in the short time we were there. The small town atmosphere combined with the native culture that many of the inhabitants still embrace is captivating and left us charmed and fascinated with Otavalo. I strongly recommend this trip to anyone visiting Ecuador. It will be well worth the effort and travels.

Hostal Otavalo Prince was a quaint little hotel in the middle of town. If you need someplace quiet this may not be for you however, the streets do quiet down around 10:00 PM each night. It is extremely inexpensive ($35 a night which includes breakfast – a 10% charge will be added if you pay by credit card). Like everyplace else we stayed there is no heat and no air conditioning. If it is too cool during the day open the window and the sun and warm air will warm the room / house. If it is too warm at night, open the window and let the cool fresh air in.

Travel back to Quito was uneventful. We found the bus station in Otavalo and rode the 1 hour and 45 minutes back to Quito – from the bus station took a taxi home.

Likely no more posts until next weekend so until then take care!

The Otavalo Market is open seven days a week with many local vendors participating, however, Saturday is the main market of the week, and is huge covering so many streets we could not even see everything in one Saturday.  The hand made goods are simply amazing and most are of extreme quality. I am not sure why more Ecuadorian products are not sold in other parts of the world. Locals specialize in the production of hand-woven woolen goods, wooden handicrafts, paintings and many hand-made products. Anyone that has visited Otavalo will agree that this market is a must-see destination when in Ecuador. Where Quito seems to be more of a Spanish culture with a hint of Indian, picturesque Otavalo is more of an Indian culture with a hint of Spanish.

The hog tables are interesting – a full cooked pig is the center of the table and people just sit at the table, order lunch and are served a plate right there. God forgive me but the sight of it just about gaged me although I am not sure which is more disgusting to me the row of raw chickens or the stuffed pig.

We found some amazing items to purchase from Maluantho’s hand crafted silver collection to Diego Buitrón’s original paintings. Tod even found a woven hat and I scored with an absolutely beautiful cloak.  When visiting this market, make sure to have cash and in smaller bills – most vendors cannot accept credit nor can they make change for larger bills. You can haggle prices which we did with everything, but be gentle, as sales from this one day a week is how many of these locals survive.

Enough of the market for one day and on to touring the crater-lake.

Our tour guide was Diego and our driver was Edwin both were super nice and very knowledgeable about the history of Cuicocha and the indigenous plant and wild life of the area. Diego spoke his native language Otavaleño, Spanish and English. Edwin spoke Otavaleño and Spanish.

As I had stated earlier, Cuicocha was once a volcano that imploded, after which the crater flooded which resulted in the Cuicocha Lake. Eruptive activity at Cuicocha began an estimated 4500 years ago and continued until about 1300 years ago. Cuicocha Lake is over 600 feet deep and very clean and clear. The name Cuicocha translates to Kichwa: Kuykucha, “Lake of Guinea Pigs” or Kuychikucha, “Rainbow Lake”. I like to think of it as “Rainbow Lake” even though guinea pigs are a primary staple and considered an excellent source of protein by the Otavaleño people, I cannot come to terms with people eating guinea pigs.

As you can see from the photos the lake is a beautiful blue and most days you can see bubbles coming up in-between the formed islands proving that there is some sort of volcanic activity still going on in Cuicocha.

The trek around was up and down with a few level spots I think put there just to keep you from giving up. It seemed mostly uphill but I am sure that was partially due to being back up in elevation.

The elevation (11,500 feet) combined with the constant up and down made the hike difficult but quite honestly we both felt it was well worth it and if given an opportunity would do it again. Thanks to Diego and Edwin for making this possible.

Little did we know how this travel day would unfold but we were braced for an adventure. The trip to Otavalo is about 55 – 60 miles and takes and estimated 1 hour 50 minutes. Otavalo is a city with a population of about 90,000 including the surrounding smaller native villages. The primary reason for this excursion is to attend the Saturday Market where the indigenous Otavaleños sell their weaving such as handmade blankets, tablecloths, tagua nut jewelry, hand crafted silver jewelry, musical instruments, dream catchers, leather goods, fake shrunken heads, indigenous costumes, hand-painted platters and trays, purses, clothing, spices, raw foods and spools of wool. This market site boasts to be the oldest continuous operating market in the world dating as far back as 2000 years BC. I don’t know if that is fact or fictional boasting, but, it sounded intriguing.

To travel to Otavalo we had to get to the northern most bus terminal in Quito where we would catch the northbound bus to Carcelen and at the end of that route get on a bus to Otavalo. (Easy right?) We were doing great and feeling quite pleased with ourselves right up until we got off the bus in Carcelen. We went in the exit and never did find our bus or a ticket window or a police officer to ask, but some guy approached us, likely helping his friend to fill his van, and directed us out of the station to a van already filled with people. They somehow made room for us and off we were in a van filled with people that unknown to us were headed for some village 20 miles north of Otavalo. The driver did not even speak Spanish much less English, he was native Indian and spoke the Quichuan language. Luckily the other guy in the front seat did speak Spanish so Tod could communicate enough to let them know we needed to get out in Otavalo (I am not sure but I think that somehow Tod has a GPS built into his head). It really wasn’t a bad trip and we made it in record time (1 hour 15 minutes) likely because we skipped all the bus stops along the way. The shuttle van dropped us off on the highway at the edge of Otavalo and gave us directions to the town square – we thought about just getting a taxi and giving him the hotel name and address but what fun would that have been? We navigated to within 3 blocks of our hotel before I found 2 police officers and asked for directions. Not bad for 2 gringos in a city where Quichuan is the first language for all, Spanish or French a second language for many and for a limited few, English, is a third language.

After we checked into our hotel (Hostal Otavalo Prince) and regrouped a little we headed out on foot to see what there was to see and to find Ecomontes Tours. We learned of this company by means of a brochure in our hotel room and found they had hiking tours of Cuicocha Lake. Cuicocha was once a volcano that imploded, after which the crater flooded. Anyway the touring company was on the same street as the hotel so should have been easy to spot (logical right?) but there are street vendors everywhere and the businesses, if labeled, are not always labeled in spots that you can see. We eventually did find it after walking right past it the first time. It had a huge sign that said “TOURS” on the side of the building, nothing in the front and no way to identify it unless approaching from the east. We were too late in the day to hike around Cuicocha crater-lake so we booked it for Saturday and extended our stay in Otavalo. After securing our tour, we found a quaint little restaurant that had a cool outside dining and garden area. In the garden were two hammocks, I guess if you eat too much you could go lay in the hammocks and rest for a while. The single staff person (cook, hostess, waitress, table busser) spoke Quichuan and Spanish but no English, however, several of the diners were speaking English, other than ourselves, it was the most English language we had heard in over a week.

We walked around Otavalo and found an open market that was huge. Part of it was outdoors (see photos below) and some of it was indoors, but all of it was open. Fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and herbs, it appears the craft markets are in the town square. The meat section made me almost sick! There were whole pigs, tables of whole skinned chickens, other tables with what must have been cuts of beef and tables of whole fish (now when I say whole on the pigs and fish I mean with the heads on! Yuck!).

We had enough walking and headed to a coffee shop that we had spotted earlier that day (The Daily Grind). The “Hot Potato” was just upstairs and a young man, who we were soon to find out was named Jorge, directed us upstairs to the Hot Potato which had just opened. In the Hot Potato you could get coffee, a few different drinks, wine, beer (one brand but a light and a dark), and soup of the day. This place was great, we met Bonnie an expat from New York. Bonnie has been in Ecuador for 16 years and appears to be the financial backer. She lives between New York and Ecuador, she owns a house in one of the surrounding communities and works with the local government to build schools. It was interesting to learn that she gets most of the funding to build these schools by working with two local artists (one painter and one silver smith). Bonnie purchases their art, transports and sells it in New York, then uses the profits to build schools. She has really embraced the Ecuadorian culture in this community which is primarily the Indigenous Otavaleño Indian.

This morning we had an unexpected surprise when Sandra knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to go see Cotopaxi. Obviously we said yes and went with her to the rooftop balcony of our flat. Cotopaxi can be seen in the morning when it is clear and this morning it was perfect conditions. This volcano is one of South America’s most famous volcanoes and one of its most active ones. It is 5911 m (19,393 feet) high, with a current status labeled as erupting. As you can see from the photos Cotopaxi is smoking steadily. Quito is at a high enough elevation that if Cotopaxi does erupt in full force we will not have to evacuate however there are several small villages she is concerned for so although it was a rare novelty for us to see, we pray for the safety of the nearby villages.

While we had this viewpoint from the rooftop we took a few photos of Quito to share with you.

After the excitement of seeing our first erupting volcano we took the Trolley downtown for lunch and the Jardin Botànico de Quito (Botanical Garden of Quito) in Carolina Park. We found an awesome restaurant across the street from the park. It was by far the best dining experience we have had in Quito thus far. I already put in my request that this restaurant, Lizarran – Spanish Tapas Restaurant, is the one I want to go to for our last night / dinner in Quito. Tod ordered a Margarita and had the most beautiful blue drink I have ever seen. I had no idea they made blue Margaritas and neither did he!

On the way to the Garden, we stopped to take pictures of the plane that was gutted out, painted and now is used for a slide. This section of the park was closed off but we could still get a photo to send Keith.

Walking into the Botanical Garden was a bizarre transition from a crazy busy downtown city to a tranquil, peaceful and quite park. There were many different species of plants and trees from the rainforest to the dessert. It was definitely worth the time and money ($3.00 Each) to see the garden.

Tomorrow we are taking a bus to Otavalo and will be spending the night. Likely the next post will not be until Sunday. Until then – wishing you all the best! T n M

Going to Middle Earth was amazing and the trip there and back an adventure. We took the blue line, which was a first for us. The blue line is independently operated and runs differently than the trolleys and the yellow line. For starters you do not buy a .25 cent ticket prior to getting on, which was strange and also there is a worker other than the driver that I will call a porter for lack of a better term. The porter collects the money from you when you get off inside the Quito city limits (.25 cents) or walks through the bus and collects (.40 cents) from each passenger when the bus passes the city limits. The porter is busy the entire trip, collecting money, making change and announcing (yelling) the next bus stop destination or “parada de autobus”.  In the afternoon it is so busy I do not know how he keeps track of who he has collected from and who still owes. It seems like an organized mess to me.

Getting on and off is a challenge, not only because the first step is so high, but also the driver does not always come to a full stop or wait for everyone to get on or off before closing the doors. If only younger men are at the upcoming stop, the driver merely does a rolling stop and the men getting on have to run jump on and off a slow moving bus, it’s crazy. Consideration is given for women, children and old people, once we learned the rules we realized it is best for Tod to get on and off first because the driver will wait for me, however he has had the doors close on him. One really sweet thing (well at first I thought it was sweet) is that Men get up for pregnant women, moms with babies, the handicapped and old people. One gentleman got up and gave me his seat. The nerve! I almost slapped him in the face, I may never ride the blue line again!

Our final destination, The Equator, Mitad del Mundo, and is one of Ecuador’s must see attractions. It’s located approximately 26 km (16 m) north of the center of Quito and took about 30 minutes by bus.

When you enter the grounds of Mitad del Mundo there is a path to the monument (shown below) that takes you to the center of the earth or latitude 0’0’0”. The path is adorned with artwork including busts of scientists and engineers involved in the identifying and measuring where the exact center exists.

Approaching the monument you see a yellow line painted down the center of the east-facing entrance where you can stand to have your photo taken straddling the line, one foot on the northern and one foot on the southern hemisphere. The monument is about 100 feet high and the globe on the top is 4.5 meters (14.75’) and weighs 5 tons.

Inside the monument is a 3 story museum that depicts the indigenous culture/people of Ecuador. There are also interactive experiment stations proving you are at the Equator.

The Equator was originally mapped and discovered by a French expedition team in 1736 although in recent times with the GPS the exact location is in question. Were the early geographers really 231 – 250 meters (700 – 820 feet) off the mark? This “new” location is advertised to be the “real” Equator and has several “scientific experiments” again proving that now you are at the “real” Equator. We need to go back with a tour guide and investigate this for ourselves, but for now, we were at Middle Earth!

Last night was a tough one. I believe the altitude finally caught up with me (too bad I did not read about the symptoms and how to treat it before it got as bad as it did). Mostly it feels like having the flu – nauseous, achy and just plain old yuck. Needless to say I spent most of the day in bed trying to drink water so I could feel human again. Tod is a saint of a husband (well just as a person in general), and spent the day pestering and trying to nurse me. No just kidding, really he spent the day catching up with work emails and trying to make sure I had what I needed to rest.

I will use this post to tell you some interesting things about Quito traffic. It is so over populated in the city that there is a restriction on when your car can be on the road. Based on the last digit of your license plate number will determine your restriction. Sandra, our landlady, cannot be on the road on Tuesday mornings from 7:30 – 9:30 and again in the evening rush hours from 4:30 – 6:30. You really do not want to be walking around on busy streets during these times of day because the exhaust fumes are so bad. We are in more of a residential area so it is not so bad but still cars have to respect the restriction no matter what. The photo below is the entrance to our casa and also Sandra’s “garage”. It is long and narrow – 3 (small) cars could fit.

Tomorrow we are planning to take a bus to the middle of the world, “Mitad del Mundo”. I am sure it will be more interesting than today was. Until tomorrow or Hasta mañana.

I forgot to mention that we did watch the Packer game Sunday. Tod and Jeremie (Jeremie configured everything while Tod complained it was taking to long) have it setup so Tod can turn on his SlingBox/NFL Ticket on a computer from here, connect the computer to our TV in Ecuador and we can watch anything available on the TV in Dallas. Crazy right? Anyway we enjoyed watching the Packers beat the 49ers right from the comfort of our Ecuadorian casa/home.

Monday we were on a mission to check out the local “Cake Factory” (not sure why the sign is in English, nobody there spoke a word of English). Sandra said this is a great place for coffee and breakfast, she was correct. The problem is, like most of the places in our neighborhood it does not open until 9:30 AM during the week and 10:00 AM on the weekends. Who the heck ever heard of a bakery / coffee shop that does not open until the morning is almost over? Oh well, it had great reviews and we had no choice, so we waited until 9:30 for coffee.

Next stop, the Panificadora or Bakery which is a great place to get fresh bread. There is a photo below and if you notice the green garage type door next to the bakery it is another shop that is just not open yet. It is strange, during the day the streets are busy with pedestrians and open shops. At night or early (Ecuadorian) mornings the streets are deserted and just look like rows of garage doors.

The photo of the fruit stand is not the greatest – the sun was in the wrong place – but you get the idea. These little fruit and vegetable stands are all over the place and the prices are great. I scored big time at the stand a few doors down the street. They had Guanàbana (not sure if there is an English translation) for $4.00! And not just one, they had several of them. I asked how much and was sure I did not understand what the shopkeeper told me when she said “cuatro dolares”, I repeated it back to her and held up 4 fingers and she nodded, “si cuatro dolares”. I am sure I could have bargained down but I was in such shock I just picked a ripe one out and put it in my bag. This was still expensive for Ecuador but not compared to the $25 they cost at the exotic fruit stand in Puerto Rico.

I wish I could send a case to Kristen, a friend from my Puerto Rico days. She loves Guanàbana so much that if there was only one at the stand we would save it for her. The taste is sort of a combination of strawberry and pineapple with an after taste of maybe coconut or banana – it’s hard to explain. Most of the local people cannot stand all the seeds so use it to make juice or a type of ice cream. It has a high content of nutrients and antioxidants. It’s high in vitamin C and several B vitamins but believe it or not all the nutritional value has nothing to do with why I like it so much. I just plain old love the taste!  So as you see below, I made Tod take the photo below of me holding my prize Guanàbana!

Sundays in Old Town are a blast. The streets are closed down and all the vendors come out. There are musicians, mimes, and all kinds of street shows. I love Ecuadorians for many reasons but mostly because I do not have to be in the front row to see the shows! (At 5’ 3 1/2″) I am taller than most of the women and even some of the men.

I’m not sure if it is every Sunday but on the 4^th there was a parade from church to church and the Ecuadorians were dressed in native ceremonial costumes. We toured a few of the cathedrals all of which are beautiful but the most spectacular cathedral was the Iglesia de la Compańia de Jesus. This cathedral took 160 years to build and was under construction from 1605 – 1765. Walking into this cathedral is absolutely breathtaking and feels like you just walked into a golden palace. 23 carat gold leaf covers almost every square cm of the interior. I do not think that photos could have done it justice but it’s a shame we cannot show you pictures of the inside of this magnificent church, but photo taking is not allowed.

We walked across a bridge sort of away from old town and came across a local band. We stopped to listen for a while and have a video that I will post as soon as I get it sized. These people know how to have a good time! Old Town is definitely worth going to but do it on a Sunday when the streets are blocked off and the festivities are in full force! This will be hard to top.

Today we experimented with public transportation. By familiarizing ourselves with transportation we opened the doors to exploring Ecuador. The trolleys and buses cost .25 cents each trip but there are the long buses that are about $1.00 an hour. We took the trolley to Parque La Carolina (Carolina Park) which is a 165 acre park in the Quito central business district. We were on a shopping center touring mission so we did not have much time to spend in the park but plan to go  back to tour the botanical gardens some other day.

First shopping stop was Centro de Shopping Ińaquito. This was a huge shopping center and I saw many things I want to go back and possibly purchase, but our only real purchase was a HDMI cable so we could connect a computer to the TV so we would be able to watch the Packer game on Sunday. This center has so many children’s activities from face painting to riding little animal cars it was amazing. Besides all the kids activities the majority of shops were for shoes, followed closely by women’s clothing, and then the normal mix of everything else. Next we walked over to Quicentro Shopping Center and the first store I saw when walking in was Tiffany and Company the entire shopping mall was high end fashions and totally amazing. Again most of the shops were shoes and women’s clothing followed by “all the rest”. Our only purchase here was coffee and scones at the Juan Valdez coffee shop. It seems like Juan Valdez is the Starbucks of Ecuador and quite honestly I love it just as much as Starbucks. Well except nobody speaks English and all the menus are in Spanish. Even the mall security guards in their gold rimmed top hats did not speak English. (Good thing I know how to ask where the bathrooms are!) Our Spanish is coming back, but not as fast as we would like it to.

We took a bus to the Mariscal district with plans to visit Finn McCool’s Irish Pub and Sports Bar. Unfortunately we didn’t bring the map nor did we remember the street it was on so after walking a few more miles we took a taxi home. (Some taxis have meters – those are the easy ones – most don’t.) This was the first time I asked how much it cost, after that we more just estimated and gave the driver what we were willing to pay. Usually about $4.00 which includes a generous tip.

So did you hear the one about the Englishman, the Australian and the Canadian? OK me either but these three are the founders and owners of Finn’s where we did end up going back to for an early dinner. We both ordered the Ecuadorian Potato, Cheese and Avocado soup. It is wonderful and again I wish I had taken a picture. I must get this recipe. It was nice to speak English with a few of the Australian’s there for the big game but honestly we are relieved we have the means to get the Packer game in our flat. Finn’s is a fun place but way to noisy and crowded for our football viewing pleasure.

Day one in Ecuador and I woke with a screaming headache.  I knew right away it was from the unaccustomed altitude (9000 feet), I drank as much water as possible until my headache dissipated. The big plans for today are to walk and familiarize ourselves with the neighborhood and find the grocery store or Supermercado. We had street maps and verbal directions from Sandra (received between 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM after a full day of travel, not to mention the elevation issue) directing us to the Supermercado, a hardware store, a bakery/coffee shop, the trolley and the bus stops. She told it would be an easy walk to the grocery store but take a taxi back – it would cost $1.50 for the taxi ride. The coffee shop, fruit stands and hardware store are more “level” so in Sandra’s opinion, would be easy to walk both ways.

We found out exactly what Sandra was talking about. I believe anything less than a 45 degree angle is considered “level”. Our flat is located on a very steep hill and everything to see or do is at least a mile or so lower than where we are. Early on, we discovered that the easy / downhill part of our daily journeys are always at the start of the trek, when we are fresh and full of energy. I think we are both going to have extremely strong leg muscles when we finish this trip. (By the way, we never did take the taxi back from grocery shopping. It was uphill all the way – we had to stop to catch our breath several times on that trip.) You cannot tell from the photos but it really is Very steep.

We explored on foot all day and put on well over 5 miles, mostly up hill and other than our landlady Sandra, no one speaks English. So the good news is we are being forced to brush up on Spanish.