Otavalo

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Last weekend we went to Otavalo to visit its famous indigeno market. We were told to get there as early as possible and as the city is alomost a 2h busride away we got up at 6am and arrived at 8:45am. Absolutely worth it!
The textil market on saturday is just huge and there are soo many things to see.
Once you enter the market area you are surrounded by stalls offering products in every colour there is. Sweater, pants, hats, tapestries, socks, cups and many more. Many tourists just walk on the outside of the main market place, but once you get inside it becomes really quite and idyllic though the intensity of colours increases even more. Absolutely overwhelming.
Of course we were not here just for looking and also bought some things. Not all of it was bought for a really good reason, but hey, if you finally find a wool hat in the colour you always wanted, even though its about 20° the next half year, 4$ can be excused. What made the shopping even more interesting is definitely the haggling. Once we actually "worked" together with a french couple to get even more discount on cups. If you know how, everything can be cheap 😉
I guess in total the market fills about 10 blocks and its divided into different parts. The indigeno textil market, one part for casual clothes and also a fruits and meat market. The animal market is a bit apart from the centre, but we haven't been there.
Likewise we had some really nice surprises during the day. For lunch we picked a random restaurant a bit apart from the market street and just there we met some girls which we actually just got to know the evening before in Quito! A nice company for lunch. Moreover as we strolled over the market we heard suddenly from a small entrance on the side some nice music and decided to find out whats going on there. Turned out it was a small restaurant with a nice garden and her we met Felix again, a guy we got to know 3 weekends before in the tower of the cathedral of Quito! The world has become really small.
After relaxing for about an hour in the park of Otavalo we went for the Parque Condor where a flight show takes place every day at 16:30. As some locals told us a cab shouldn't cost more than 3$ we took one. In the end we paid 4$ but after arriving at the park I even would have paid 5$, because the road was so bad.
The park established by a dutch couple, they are everywhere, was really nice and the show was very nice. We guess it ended a little bit early after one of the eagles decided to enjoy flying for a bit longer, but one can not be mad.
For the night we stayed in a nice hostel a uphill of Otavalo with a great view and just perfectly to end this charming day.

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Photos

Bald Eagle
unfortunately we did not see him flying