Adventures in Otavalo part 2

The next morning we were up bright and early and headed first to see the less toursity animal market where the locals go to barter mainly pigs, cows and hens. At least that was how it was suppoed to work. As far as we could see, the market consisted of a lot of locals, stood around a muddy field with disgruntled animals on bits of string, having a chat. Kind of the Ecuadorian version of going to Starbucks back home.

After a few minutes we had seen enough and started to make our way back to the craft market, via the main road. It was at this point that we spotted a runaway pig, the owner of which had lost control of this beast (not surprising - a willful pig bent on escape is a difficult thing to handle!). The animal was galloping towards us, down the dual carriageway, closely followed by not only its owner and several friends, but also a large bus.

Picture the scene, for those of you who know James, you can imagine his delight at spotting an opporunity to connect with locals and to help! "Hold my bag hon, I'll be back in a second!" and off he ran to join the locals, desperately attempting to herd the errant pig away from the on-coming traffic...


The craft market itself was enormous - filling all of the streets of the town. Many of the locals still wear their traditional dress and make quite a spectacle. A good morning spent wandering around, although our haggling skills definitely need honing.

Adventures in Otavalo part 1

It was high time to get out of the big city this weekend, so we headed for Otavalo, a market town a couple of hours north of the capital. The main market in Otavalo is on a Saturday morning, but they recommend getting there on the Friday night to see the market early the next day. So on Friday pm, a group of 6 of us set off for the trip...
The first challenge was the bus journey, but that probably deserves an entry of its own later on. I will leave James to elaborate. The road took us through the highlands (and they really are high - we´re talking 2500m!), through some amazing scenery, including more volcanoes... I grabbed this shot out of the window of the bus as we sped past.

On arrival, the first thing that struck us was the friendliness of the people - much more of a small town feel about the place, and the locals couldn't do enough to help you. We found our hostel rooms, and headed out for the evening.

After a couple of aborted attempts (recommended restaurant closed, poor grasp of geography by locals giving directions!) we found a Mexican restaurant which suited our purpose. No other customers, but not to be deterred, we sat down, and were promptly served by a friendly lady who took our order. The first dish arrived no problem - beef quesadillas. Nice. Exactly what was ordered. The second dish to appear should have been a beef burrito, but was in fact a beef quesadilla. When we pointed this out to the owner, we were cheerfully informed that a quesadilla was actually just a burrito which hadn't been rolled up, and that wasn't a problem, was it? If so they could take it back into the kitchen and roll it up for us (ever the customer service professionals!).
No problem, we said. Flat would do. I eagerly awaited my chicken quesadilla. It arrived. I opened it up, and it turned out to be... a beef quesadilla - in disguise. Next came more apologies from the kitchen. The remaining chicken dish we had ordered was going to be a little late (maybe they had to go out and buy the chicken...) but they could offer us another dish to eat in the meantime while it was being prepared at no extra cost. Which was of course, you guessed it, another beef quesadilla!
Luckily they were good quesadillas! and at $6/head including beers, we paid up happily, laughing at the comedy of the situation.

A week in Quito

As we're coming to the end of our first week in Quito, feels like a good time to fill you in on a bit about the place and what we've been up to here.

First of all, for those of you who don't know much about Ecuador, (come on, admit it!) a quick orientation - it is the smallest country in the Andes, next door to Columbia and Peru, famous for its volcanoes, amazing biodiversity, Panama hats (how does that work?!) and... guinea pigs (the national delicacy).

Quito the capital is only the second largest city. Prevented from spreading sideways, by the 2 ranges of the Andes, (occidental and oriental) it now stretches 17km from one end to the other in a sprawling mass. Quito is essentially a fairly typical Latin american capital city - big, noisy and pretty grubby. It does have some interesting colonial architecture to recommend it, but by far its most redeeming feature is it's location. The volcanoes which surround it provide a spectacular backdrop, as well as dictating the weather pattern, which tends to consist of short bouts of fierce sun followed by cloud cover then rain. Repeat.


During our week here we've been attending language school in the mornings, at a great place called 'Bipo & Toni's'. The staff were enormously friendly, and we made some good friends amogst the other students, most of whom were German or Swiss. Its amazing what a difference just a week of classes can do - I have managed to resurrect my distinctly rusty grasp of spanish, and starting from nothing, James can now manage pretty well with basic conversations. It always feels so much better to be able to engage the locals in their own tongue, if somewhat shakily! Something many of our fellow tourists here fail to grasp - much to our embarrassment. It is unfortunately not uncommon to see some ignorant anglophone speaking loudly in english to an Ecudorian on the assumption that the higher the volume the easier they will be to understand. Arrgh!

The journey begins...

Hi guys!

at last the long-awaited Blog is hitting your screens (in one form or another! - we're very new to this game so hopefully it will improve with time!).

So after a manic last fews weeks at work, followed by another manic few weeks at home sorting, tidying, cleaning, (stressing!) we finally made it out to the airport for the 24 hr journey to Quito in Ecuador.
So far so good, we have so far found decent place to stay, found our feet in a new city, made it to 2 days of language school, oh and James has grown a beard. (votes please on whether it should stay or go... the jury's out at the moment!)

On Sunday we made it up Pinchincha, one of the volcanoes which overlooks Quito. We cheated an took the cable car, but it was still a breath-taking (literally!) wander around the top of the station at 4100m! But what amazing views.