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Published: December 13th 2005
After booking our trip to the Galapagos Islands (more on that in my next entry) we decided to spend some of the intervening days somewhere other than Quito. There's nothing wrong with Quito in my opinion, although the pollution, hustle and the potential for petty crime can wear you down after a while. We had after all been there for almost two weeks. With all of this in mind we decided to spend a few days in the market town of Otavalo, in the north of Ecuador.
Most people go to Otavalo for the market. Emma and I went there to see what it was like, the market being a secondary attraction as neither of us are natural shoppers by any stretch of the imagination. The weekend market (said to be the biggest in South America) is truely huge. As usual in such situations I was totally overwhelmed by the number of stalls selling the same things, all be they authentic looking indegenous crafts. We didn't spend that much time around the market which is a shame as I wanted to take more pictures - I erroneously assumed that the market would continue on weekdays and would be easier to
More bananas than you could shake a stick at
In Ecuador they have a crazy number of varieties of banana. We've only tried a couple but they've been very tasty.photograph then. Doh!
Leaving the market however proved to be a good thing. On our first full day in Otavalo we decided to walk to the nearby Cascada de Pegucha (Pegucha Falls) which were a couple of kilometres away. It was on the way there, walking through the less developed part of the town, that we encountered real life in that part of the country. We met smiling locals who guided us towards the falls with a shy grin and beautiful green rolling hills in the shadow of some very impressive volcanoes.
After reaching the falls and having referred to the Footprint Guide to South America - thoroughly recommended by the way - we decided to scramble up the left side of the waterfall and continue on the path to the Lago de San Pablo (Lake San Pablo). What a good decision that was! The walk there was lovely, we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and met a load of friendly local kids on whom I tested my less than fluent pidgeon Spanish. Not sure either of us understood exactly what was being said but everyone present seemed to find it fun...
On the next day in Otavalo
we made an impromptu excursion to Ibarra, a town not far from the Columbian border. Unfortunately the day happened to be a Sunday, and the place was closed. Totally. The most remarkable thing that we encountered there was a local band who played something of a cacophony in the local bus station!
The journey back from Otavalo to Quito was a first for a number of reasons; it was our most exciting, longest and most random yet! The Pan Americana highway was blocked by a protest - they seem quite common in Ecuador as a whole - and the bus therefore had to take a detour. One of the pictures on this page shows the road - or rather goat track - that we followed. Busses and trucks were going in both directions down this road and it took us a whole 5 1/2 hours to cover what's supposed to take 2! The bit when two busses needed to pass on a really narrow part of the road was particularly funny. You have to have a sense of humour with South American bus journeys I reckon!
Back in Quito, we prepared for our imminent departure to the Galapagos
A local Quechua Indian man
The locals are often quite happy to have their photo taken - although in this case it required a little baksheesh. Islands. To say we were excited is something of an understatement........
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