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We took a bus that cost about $1 each to go on a long bus trip to Otavalo. This town holds a very large market on Saturdays, including an animal market at 6am, so we arrived the day before so that we could have an early start. The road to Otavalo passes acres of glasshouses, growing roses and flowers. The bus was to Otavalo, so we were waiting for it to arrive at the station - it never did. People on the bus were talking to us about Otavalo, and we could not understand them. It happened that we had passed Otavalo and had to get off and walk back in light rain a few kilometers. But we got there. We booked into a nice hotel and had a walk around the town. This town has the most successfully financial indigenous people in the continent. It is a really thriving town with all the streets either done up or under construction. All roads nicely tiled and really nice lighting. The people wearing traditional clothing drive the latest utes and cars, all loaded up with their goods.
Saturday, really early we walked to the animal market which was across a bridge
Farms inside a volcano
A collection of farms, inside the cone of a volcano, Pululahua, near Mitad Del Mundo and up the road a bit. On the way we met a NZ lady who has lived in Ecuador for 17 years and she recognised our accents. The animal market consisted of cattle, sheep and pigs. All tied up with string or rope. We don't know what would have happened if a rampaging bull had got loose. People were everywhere, either with their 2-3 animals or busy buying them. We don't know how the sale happened but we saw money changing hands. I think people just offered for the stock. No loading ramps, just jump them on and off trucks and if you bought something unexpected, you could buy a bit of rope and lead it home.
Off to the main market which you could buy anything from food to the most ornate dresses. The main road had been closed off and a large plaza had stalls put up and the place was buzzing. If you saw something you liked, you bargained with the stall holders, so Paul did well. He bought a nice belt that he lost during one of our moves, and I had to put up with moaning for 2 days.
The ladies at Otavalo
Farms irrigated with mist
The farms in the volcano is irrigated with mist wear lovely white blouses with embroidery around the neck, straight black skirts and colourful shawls and lots of necklaces. All the ladies, even babies wear jewelery.
After a day of shopping we needed a sleep in preparation for the night - we went to a cock fight. I wanted a seat near the exit in case I needed a quick get-a-way, but in the end it wasn't as bad as I had thought. We arrived at 6 pm to be told it started at 8, so we went and had a meal. The actual event did not start until 10, so we had a long cold wait. Talk about take a kid to the stock cars or fishing, here they take them cock fighting. The ring was about 3 meters across and was covered in nice red carpet and had seats in tiers all around. Men kept arriving with their birds in special cases and put them into cages and locked them up so no-one could tamper with them. When they bought the birds out for the first fight we could see they had special spurs taped onto their legs. Some of the birds had been defeathered on their
legs and breasts. They obviously loved their birds, because when they were fighting and they had to stop the fight because a spur got caught in the other bird, they would lick their heads, put the birds head in their mouths, lick their wings and blow on their backs. So much for bird flu. Some birds fought until they fell on the ground, there was a referee and the two owners of the birds in the ring, yelling encouragement to their bird. The referee appeared to holding the money that was taken in bets, but we thought he was very fare.
We sat next to an old man who took a liking to Paul and kept making him have a drink of rum out of his glass, he shared it with everyone else as well. Everyone was sharing their drinks. The old man had 2 small wallets with spurs in, just like a trout fisherman looking for the right fly, he chose the spurs with great care. He showed us his tins of spurs and felt how sharp they were, we think they were tortoise shell. All the spurs were wiped with antiseptic by the referee before the fight. When
the fighting starts, the whole room goes mad, with people yelling, smoking, arm waving and jumping up and down. It was very exciting. The ref would stop the match if a bird looked tired or hurt. He would check if the bird was able to start again by holding the bird up by the wings and putting it down on its feet. If it didn't stand to his approval, the game was stopped. Either owner could stop the game at any time also. The birds really got in it and pulled feathers and jumped on the other bird, digging the spurs in as it went. There appeared to be enough cocks to keep fighting until daylight, but we left early.
We got back to the hotel very late to find the door locked and eventually managed to wake the man to open the door. Back to Quito the next day.
A day of rest and then another bus trip out of town, we went to Mitad del Mundo, the middle of the world. We visited a tourist equator, a real equator and saw a monument on the top of a hill,put there by the Aztec people
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