Otavalo

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We should have finished this blog already while we were still on the road but better late then never. So here we go:

As we mentioned before, after we returned from our amazing jungle trip, we stayed a couple more days in Quito before we headed further north towards Colombia. Our last stop in Ecuador was Otavalo, a small town famous for its market and bird rescue park.

The market was HUGE, we have seen plenty of markets during our trip but this one was exceptional. The stalls spread all over the main square and into the adjacent streets and the street vendors offered all kinds of goods: crafts, jewelery, clothes, fabrics, wooden instruments, food, souvenirs. Everything. We did spend some money on souvenirs there but my heart still aches that I couldn't buy a hand-woven, colorful hammock but there is just so much space in a backpack and on a balcony, really.

At the main square, we found the "Shanandoa Pie Shop" which was highly recommended in the Lonely Planet and they did not lie, the cakes were amazing. During our stay in Otavalo, we tried the massive maracuja-meringue-pie, the lemon-meringue-pie, the chocolate pie and the warm blackberry crumble pie with ice cream. They all were really, really yummy.

Outside of town is the "Parque Condór" located, a rescue center for birds of prey like condors, eagles, hawks and owls. We were recommended to take a taxi up there and that was one hell of a taxi ride, again. Unpaved, gravel roads, deep holes, steep serpentines, the whole program. The taxi driver was rather unimpressed by the terrible shape of the road and was very much engaged in a conversation with us. I think, we were a little short of words which was due to our intermediate Spanish and the shaking and rattling of the car. Part of the conversation was an ever-occuring misunderstanding that happened to Grim all the time during the trip.

Taxidriver: Donde eres? (Where are you from?)

Grim: Suecia. (Sweden.)

T: Ah, Suiza. (Ah, Switzerland.)

G: Non, Suecia, soy sueco. (No, Sweden, I am Swedish.)

T: Sueco? (Swedish?)

G: Si. (Yes.)

T: ... Blank stare.

The confusion left the peoples' faces only after I said, I was from Germany, that country they knew.

Anyway, the non-profit rescue park was very nicely situated within the mountains and we had a pretty amazing view during the bird show we watched. We learned during the show, that the purpose is to feed up and heal injured birds and release them when they are back on track. We saw some pretty impressive, very majestic and big birds but it was pretty apparent that the birds miss flying because they took off for quite some time during the flight show.

We decided to walk the 5 km back into town and half-way on the road an Ecuadorian family offered us a ride back to town, we accepted but unfortunately, they went a different way and dropped us off at the main street, telling us that we could take a bus back to Otavalo from here. There was no bus in sight and the street had no sidewalk, so we walked all the way back to where we got in the car and continued our path down into town. The opposite of "good" is "well-intended" indeed.

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