On our way to the bus station, we chatted with our cab driver, who seemed more than entertained to have people to joke around with him. It wasn't until we saw a bus with Otavalo written on the side that we realized how entertained he was with us. When we saw the bus I joked with him that he should drive faster to catch up with the bus, and he did just that. After managing to flag down the bus in the middle of the highway, we boarded to begin our 2 hour journey to Otavalo.
Over a tetra pack of the most disgusting sangria, Mary managed to make a friend on the bus who decided to take us under her wing. She had us get off the bus a little early, because the bus station isn't the safest place at night, and took us to a wonderful hotel she knew in town and told us where to go for dinner.
The hotel was fabulous. We managed to get a room for three people with a single bed in a separate room (as I'm sure you guessed, that was my room .... with a bed built for a hobbit). It had a lovely outdoor courtyard with hammocks and the best breakfast. Most importantly, it had a great shower .... or at least I was told by the girls that was more important.
After settling in we headed out on the town looking for some food and stumbled upon a pizza joint (which served cheese and chocolate pizza .... best idea in the world) that had a live folk band playing. We spent a fair chunk of the evening there listening to the music and chatting before turning in early as we had to get going first thing in the morning.
Our goal on Saturday was to visit the animal market before breakfast. From what we heard, this was one of the most unique markets you would see, and we weren't disappointed. This market can be best described as ordered chaos. Located in a field on the other side of the Pan-American Highway, the animal market is roughly divided into two parts; cows and other animals. The way it works is people bring animals to the market to sell and if you want one you walk around (watch your step .... there are hundreds of animals here who didn't use the bathroom before leaving the farm) and shop for animals in much the same way you would shop for fruit. Look at it from all angles, shake it, poke it, smell it and if you feel you need to, look inside it from all angles. If you like it, you pay around $350 for a cow. Not to worry, there is every kind of animal you can imagine here from sheep to llamas.
After we had enough of the animals and breakfast, we headed to the artisan market which we thought was in the Plaza de Ponchos, but ended up engulfing the whole town. There were more blankets, scarves and ponchos around every corner ... more than you could ever imagine. It didn't take long before we got into textile overload. But one thing that didn't cease to amaze was the quality of the textiles. Everything was top quality, bright and colourful and most importantly, dirt cheap. Things that would be $80 in Canada were $8 here, and that's before you started the bargaining.In the afternoon we decided to go for a hike (mostly because we had no money left) to some waterfalls close to Otavalo. So we packed a picnic lunch and headed out to find the waterfalls, which we could see on the map, but it didn't provide enough information on how to get there. After asking a few people, we managed to find our way.
The Cascades de Peguche are a collection of waterfalls, of which the largest holds spiritual significance to the indigenous people around Otavalo. When we arrived we found a very well manicured park with a lovely trail to the top of the waterfall that slowly turned into a cliff you had to scale with a mud bridge you had to use to cross the waterfall. In the end, we went from a paved trail to bushwhacking our way around steep cliffs and rushing water. Once we got around the other side we started to follow the aqueduct back to the entrance before returning to Quito for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment