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Published: December 9th 2006
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Hello amigos ee Familia
We arrived in Otavalo three days ago and headed for Peguche the Weaving village where we are staying in a hostal called AyaHuma(ayauma.com). It is a very comfortable place to stay right in the centre of Peguche just off an old abandoned railway. All around you can hear the sounds of weaving looms eminating from rundown buildings, we have seen a few of these looms in operation and they are huge and noisy probably dating back 50 years. They seem to start around 5 am in the morning. Peguche is very successful and the main producers of Ecuadorian woven cloth and fabrics. They use mainly alpaca wool very soft and sheeps wool, the natural pigments they use are very colourful.
Otovalo is a major market town in Ecuador and trades in textiles and Ecuadorian craft but it also has strong agriculture all around. Otovalo is surrounded by mountains and a very buzzing town with so much local everyday cultural activities so the Tourism doesn´t take over. Although it seems that the infamous Saturday market is good for the tourists here you can by anything craftily Ecuadorian, panpipes alpacha hoodies guinea pigs for eating rather than being
pets but this is your choice. We saw a cooked guinea pig yesterday served to a french man in the Aya Huma restaurant, he asked us over to see what we thought, i had to stop myself from saying it unfortunately looked a bit like road kill, i said tres bien bon apetite under a smerk!
We have been on a few walks here to the cascades of Peguche´s grand waterfalls quite powerful, it is the rainy season so chucks down with rain from around 3pm .
In history and present day it is used as a spiritual place to bathe . The water that feeds it travels down from Saint Pablo lake . Local people believe that the water cleans the soul . If one bathes half, one leaves renewed. It is an ancestral point of contact of Andean Shamens. The natives ¨Quichuas think that it is a powerful centre and every year on the summer solstice 21 June it is necessary to bathe here at midnight to attract good luck. They also talk about a spiritual rainbow of a thousand colours. When we visited the falls we saw a rainbow arching over the waterfall it was very
beautiful.
The festival of Inti Raymi
On the 24th June the locals celebrate San Juan and Saint Pedro, they form great dances and sing through the street and from house to house and are disquised with masks and scarfs.The people follow Aya Huma the spiritual leader who is the Sun God and blessed for the energy that the Sun gives everyones crops. He is recognised by looking like the Sun so the chosen person wears a mask that is amazing. It looks quite scary but quite like what a walking sun would look like. They then bathe in the cascade at night and aquire special powers.
It has been very interesting to stay in this area. The people look very different and have a very strong indigenous look. The men generally have long black tied hair for culture and spiritual tradition. Many people wear traditional clothing but many people also where western style clothing. It seems that there are more women walking the streets rather than men. And they seem to do a lot of the manual work and farming. Communities here are very successful traders and you will find many of the men will go off and trade around
the world so this might bne the reason for the lack of men. Today at the market the men seemed to be back.
Everyone here seems to be very friendly and whilst walking around the streets we seem to grab alot of attention towards very small children who don´t yet have any inhabitions so will come straight upto you, teenagers as ever are a bit more cautious although we are having conversations with some in our broken spanish .
We have still to visit the villages that surround Peguche the village of Shamens and the Village of hat makers.
It is Keri´s birhtday tomorrow and we will move into the Town of Otovalo where we stay in a place called Dona esther. On Monday we celebrate by going to some local thermal spars called Chachimbiro (www.chachimbiro.com) for a relaxing soak in waters full of sulphides and other lovelies. This will be great for bathing keri´s insect bites as she is furiously bitten most days, i get bitten but not devoured like Keri, top quality blood my lovely wifey has!
Well have to go now before the water pelt from the sky we have a bit of a walk back
to Aya Huma, will have some lovely food later and there maybe some local music playing although we have been the only guests on our first night there.i think its upto 5 people now!
There is a lot of agriculture
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Dave,Sarah,Michael and Amo
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Having a great time
Hi there, Just wanted you both to know that we all had a great time at your fantastic wedding! It certainly sounds as if you are going to have all senses stimulated while you are in Ecuador. Keep the blogs coming and all the best.