Shopping in Otavalo

---

Sunday, August 22, 2010
Friday afternoon, we left the coast (Puerto Lopez) by bus to Manta which cost us $3 each . The bus ride took us about 2 and a half hours (45 minutes of that were spent waiting in Jipijapa...pronounced “hippy-hapa”). We arrived at the Manta bus terminal about 3:30pm and wandered around a bit before heading to the airport. Manta was considerably warmer than Puerto Lopez, and the sun was even shining! Ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant...weren’t sure what we were ordering which was an adventure on its own but turned out alright. Not knowing any Spanish has made getting around and communicating very difficult. Not many people know English. Getting to the airport was another adventure...Brian, Alysia and Coulton rode in one taxi, which apparently drove 140km all the way. Our cab driver, after agreeing on the price of $2 decided to change his mind when dropping us off. Brad tried to reason with him (English vs. Spanish)...finally we just grabbed our luggage out of the cab and paid him $2 and a handful of change...it was the principle of the matter. Our flight to Quito was 30 minutes and rather bumpy. We arrived in Quito at about 8:00pm. From the airport, we took a taxi van to “old town”. We are staying at the Real Audiencia, which is an older hotel with really hard beds but the kids seem to like it as it’s a “real” hotel opposed to a bed and breakfast. It overlooks the Santa Domingo Plaza. Last night there was some sort of celebration in honour of Independence Day (which was on Aug 10th)...apparently they must celebrate it for the whole month!! There were even fireworks. During the day, we hired a private mini-van to take us to Otavalo (the place known for its Saturday market...suppose to be one of the largest in South America). It was certainly huge but everything starts to look the same after awhile. The kids all managed to find something to buy. We stopped at San Pablo Lake and saw the Imbabura volcano in the background. It is not an active volcano. The ride to Otavalo is about 2 hours (100km) on nicely paved but windy roads. Today, we are hanging around Quito and tomorrow we have booked the same taxi van and driver to take us to Mindo. We have only a few days left to see as much of Ecuador as we can.
Love to all.

---