Advertisement
Published: October 28th 2009
Edit Blog Post
So I arrived at Quito airport to be greeted by Olga (I'm staying with an ecuadorian family, Olga and Marcelo for 2 weeks). Communication was difficult with my non existent Spanish ( Spanish lessons started the day after - although still struggling I'm definitely not a natural at languages!). On the way to the house I experienced the craziness of the ecuardorian roads - it seems the way to indicate you are changing lanes is to honk your horn and at red lights we were entertained by jugglers and people were trying to sell chewing gum, newspapers,etc.
That evening I met Roul another traveller staying at the house. The next couple of days were taken up with spanish lessons and exploring the Mariscal area (very touristy with lots of hostels and cafes).
On the friday Roul and I were heading to Otavalo to stay the night and go to the Saturday morning market and my Spanish teacher Sofia offered to accompany us to Laguna Cuicotcha (a lake in an active volcano crater close to Ortavalo). We met on friday morning (Sofia's daughter and her other student Damien came along too). and set off to Laguna Cuicotcha. This involved 3
Laguna Cuicocha
Me, Roul and Damien buses and then a ride in the back of a truck! We went for a boat trip on the lake and saw the bubbles coming up from the volcano. Afterwards we had some canelazo a hot drink which didn't taste of much until I added some sugar and alcohol (don't know what, it was in wine bottles but was definitely not wine!). I also had my first try of chochos y tostado (a local snack consisting of some white beans and toasted corn with a tomato and onion sauce - tasty). We then got the truck to Cotacachi for lunch.
After this Sofia, her daughter and Damien made their way back to Quito and Roul and I explored Otavalo - a picturesque town. The main nightlife seemed to consist of driving around in a truck or car with music on at full blast (ecuadorian boy racers). We watched some cars pass us several times whilst eating dinner!
The next day Otavalo was transformed with market stalls everywhere selling everything from traditional crafts, soup with chicken heads floating in it, lots of different fruit ( I tried one that looked like a giant green bean - you ate the
Laguna Cuicocha
Me with Sofia and her daughter white flesh inside it had a really wierd texture like fur and didn't have a really strong taste!), spices, corn (I never new there were so many different types) to live chickens.
That afternoon on the way home we passed the football stadium and saw a sea of yellow shirts entering - Ecuador were playing Uruguay and if they won they would've been in the world cup (they lost).
The next day I ventured into Quito old town. There was a parade going on and various demonstrations of traditional dancing and singing. I also visited a couple of churches one almost completely covered with gold on the inside - impressive.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.144s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 61; dbt: 0.066s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb