Where the woman wear pretty dresses

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After being in the jungle for 3 days we returned to Cameron to find that her battery was flat. Luckily Dave had parked her facing the exit to the car park and there was a downhill slope at the exit. It took all of us plus a few extras to get her moving across the muddy park. When she sprang to life we all cheered.

The road was very rough for a while. We saw mountain bikers on some kind of race. Some had yellow flags, some blue, some none, and one had both. There was only one girl that we saw. There were lots of mud slides on the way but nothing to stop our progression to Otavalo.

Our hotel in Otavalo was a little unfortunate. Rooms were OK but the guy on reception was quite creepy. He was also the security guy. Never in much of a hurry to let you in once managed to lock us all in and disappear. And there was no hot water after the first night.

We arrived on a Saturday night which was a shame because Saturday was the big market day and we just missed it. There was only a huge mess left in Poncho plaza. We found a nice looking pizza place for dinner, Pizza Siciliana, where a traditional group was playing flutes and drums and guitars very enthusiastically. The pizza was nice although Pieter was not so keen on the pastry-like base. As we left 10 or 12 of our arrived. It must have been a recommended spot.

Even though the main markets were on Saturday and Tuesday, getting to Poncho plaza at 10am on Sunday we found the tourist market just getting started. We wandering around the stalls for a bit contemplating buying a nice wall hanging. Then I spotted an elephant made of Alpaca. He was cute. But what we eventually bought was an authentic Ecuadorian sun hat. The lady was very good at bargaining so we only it down from $23 to $14.

We found breaky in an ice cream parlour. $2.60 for coffee, juice, toast, butter, jam, and ranchero style eggs. A good deal.

We wandered down to the main square where there was a band playing. The music was very good and they played, standing, swaying from side to side in a lively fashion.

We stuck our heads in the church. Mass was going and they were just about to take communion so we only stayed for a moment to admire the fantastic ceiling.

We wandered around town, finding another church and the market which was very colourful and full of interesting things and some bad smells. There was tub full of chicken feet and heads that was particulary delightful.

The ladies of the region have a traditional dress that is very pretty and quite unusual. A black skirt with a split of white. A light cotton while shirt, perhaps with embroidered patterns like flowers. A black scarf worn on the head or across the shoulder. And gold necklaces. Very pretty.

For dinner we went to a restaurant with no one else there. Saturday night in Otavalo was buzzing with lots of people and cars and restaurants were quite busy. But Sunday night was dead so most restaurants were empty and some didn´t bother opening. We had fantastic entrees of avocado and chicken and spinach soup (very cheesy spinach soup). Pieter´s main was a very Brazilian chicken, chicken pieces in batter marinated in lime or lemon.

Before leaving the next morning we brought Pieter and new white t-shirt at the market. He was out of clean ones. It was $5 and said 'Fiesta en la Selva' (party in the forest).

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Photos

The market
You can see the ladies wearing the traditional dress of the area