Otavalo and El Lechero

So after our first few days in Quito, we bused it up north to a market town called Otavalo, which has about 30,000 people in the city and surrounding areas apparently (the city itself seems much smaller).

We got in in the later afternoon, and went bargain hunting for a hostel, finally settling on this one place for $3 a night each after circleing the town. Even had hot water! The market from that day was just closing down, and we thought we got a bit of an understanding about the kind of town this was.

Being Friday night, we quickly changed, cleaned up a bit, and headed into the center to get a bite to eat and check out some of the local Penas (bars). We found one with this good local folklorica band Canto Vivo, and chilled there for a while. We kind of became mini groupies and followed them around to their next gig that night, as Jesse made friends with the churanga player.

Eventually we found our way to this other Pena La Jampa, where there were a lot of younger people dancing to another local band, and then reggeaton and latin pop music. We met a couple local girls and their friends and spent the rest of the night getting them to teach us how to dance better and butchering the Spanish language trying to make sensible conversation. The girl I was dancing with was actually a 23 year old recent grad out of work after getting back from being abroad in Chile trying to figure out what to do... we had nothing in common.

Saturday we woke up a little later than intended, and missed the cool animal market just out of town. But there was plenty to explore around the city as Saturday is the big market day, and the entire town is blanketed with tiendas selling everything Ecuadorian. Every store seems to be manned by several people who rotate between other shops, so it´s hard to figure out who exactly is selling what. And there gets to be so much redundancy it´s absurd. After walking by another tienda selling the same linen shirts as the one before, you get kind of tired hearing the ladies telling you how everything was made by her and her kids. We bought a couple small items, but were happy just walking around.

That afternoon we went up into the hills on a little hike to find El Lechero, this healing tree up on a hill overlooking Otavalo and the nearby lake San Pablo. There was also a bird sanctuary up there with a condor show we wanted to check out. Once out of town things get really rural in a hurry, and eventually we´re walking through farmlands with old women dressed in traditional garb hoeing and sewing crops. It´s a pretty cool sight. The tree itself is in this amazing, romantic location. It´s the only tree around, and looks nothing like any of the other indigenous trees nearby. The vistas from it are awesome, with the volcanos and lakes and towns. The bird sanctuary was cool to see, and they did a little demonstration for us. The cab ride back was really cool though, our driver was this calculus teacher from the local secondary school and basically took us on a tour around the town to see the soccer stadium, more of the market, and told us a lot about the local life.

That night we ate out again, and decided we were going to throw out the Lonely Planet guide books we were using to find food, because every place we went to would be devoid of locals, and clearly everyone else there was going off the same info we were. No more gringos! That night we went out again, this time we started off at a Galljero though: cock fight! We were there for about an hour and a half and saw 3 fights, 2 ending in a killing blow. It was pretty crazy to watch, it´s a definite mix of sadness for the birds, and excitement at the atmosphere created by the locals betting going nuts for their birds (sucking blood from wounds). After we went to another Pena, but it sucked and we went back to the trusty Jampa. We met a couple more locals that night and found out that this was apparently the only bar people go to. This time I was dancing with a health student from the larger town north, Ibarra, who was down to visit her family for the weekend. Was a lot of fun, but you feel guilty for staying out late, because after 10 the grandmother who runs the hostel locks the door and goes to sleep, so to get in you have to bang on the door to wake her up, a tad inconvenient at 2 in the morning....

We´re now back in Quito before heading South for Latacunga and the largest active volcano in South America, Quilotoa.

Here are some photos of the trip so far:
Album 1
Album 2