Blogs from Otavalo, North, Ecuador, South America - page 7

a small Andean city with a big Sunday handicrafts market...... read more

After leaving the jungle town Tena we hopped on a bus for an 8 hour trek to our next destination which happened to be a small mountain town north of Quito called Otavalo. Riding public buses in Latin America is a whole different kind of experience! We were never surprised by what came onto the bus... whether it be a puppy in a diaper, random unidentified animals in boxes with breathing holes in the top, or a salesman trying to sell a herbal powder to basically cure you from any ailment you could ever have. Beyond the random sales and passengers, the views swirling through the Andes were amazing! When we arrived in Otavalo our bodies once again had to adapt to the super high altitude and change of climate. From the low humid jungle in ... read more

Estoy en Otavalo. ¿Dónde estas? Yes I'm in Otavalo. And it's high in the Andes in northern Ecuador, just north of the equator, not far from the border with Columbia in Latin America. Elevation is 2560m. Altitude sickness has kicked in; yet it is a new world for me and immensely exciting. Strangely, my Spanish has improved since I left Argentina last October, but it will need to get much better before I can understand anything much about the culture here. Except that the people are friendly and welcome strangers. It is a textile centre, with a very busy craft market that attracts tourists from all over the country. It's best for a newcomer to let the pictures speak for themselves. ­­­¿Como viajé aquí? A twenty-two hour flight, Sydney - Auckland - Santiago - Quito delivered ... read more

Hi All, After more than 8 months of travelling with hardly no shopping for souvenirs or just things we liked, we have decided that the Otavalo famous market and its surrounding villages will be the place were we would break the rule of ¨no shopping¨and we will shop and shop and shop...till we drop... Therefore, we have arrived to Otavalo on a Friday evening, just in time before the renowned Saturday indigenous market. And on Saturday morning we got up early to make sure we exploit the day to its fullest. We started the day with visiting the animal market - this was the cultural part of the day, as obviously we had no interest in buying any of the chickens, the guinea pigs or the cows that were on sale there. Yet, it was a ... read more

The problem with writing about events so long after they actually happened is that a lot of the detail is lost to me. Again I'm a week behind on the blog. But I've got an afternoon free so I'm determined to get totally up to date today...let's see how I get on! Saturday (10th April) morning, I'd already got my cab booked (Pedro, of course) to take me to one of the north terminals so that I could get a bus up to a small town called Otavalo. All I knew of Otavalo was that it was famous for its Saturday market of locally made handicrafts - alledgedly one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in South America. Although it looked like a sleepy little place from the guidebook, I figured the break from the ... read more