Otavalo

So, my first real excursion and it was fabulous! With a few small things that went wrong, of course. 


After leaving much later than planned Saturday morning, we took a 2 hour bus that cost about $2.50, which is about A LOT LESS than a 2 hour ride would be at home.


7 of us crammed into the back. There are apparently assigned seats on long rides like this, but people kind of sat everywhere and we wanted to be together. I luckily got a window seat, which was interesting because the window went all the way down to my waist so I'm glad I have good birthing hips otherwise I would have been worried about falling out!


Of course, the view on the way was out of the world. 

We took a taxi to our hostal, because the streets were absolutely covered in market goodies! I'm telling you, it was wild. There's no way a picture could do it justice, but believe me I tried. You could get lost if you walked 10 steps away from your friends, it was that crowded. Even without people near you, there's so much stuff hanging on display that I got lost really easily, and of course it's impossible to know what street you're on with all of the craziness. Our taxi cost $1, so we each put in a quarter which is just wild to think about on its own. He pointed us in the right direction, we found the hostal, and waited for the 2nd taxi. We went up to our rooms after paying $6 per person for the night (you're jealous!) and settled in. After we emptied our bags to make room for all the new stuff we were about to barter for, we were off! I bought lots of cool stuff and i won't lie almost all of it is for me! Presents for friends and fam later haha...but check these out! $2.50! 

I really want a hammock, but I ran out of money and couldn't give up the idea to buy a chair hammock with wooden parts for only $20 just yet, so I'm going to ponder how ridiculous that idea is and maybe buy a hammock later, because apparently there's a market in Quito in Carolina Park that has basically the same stuff.
I also got a sweet tapestry, and a sickkk gypsy-esque jacket that I can't wait to wear in the States and look ridiculous while doing so!


PS...anyone need some undergarments? Sold off the street?

I had read about a delicious pie shop that made sandwiches so I convinced everyone we should go there. We ordered sandwiches, not knowing that one order comes with two! Chicken salad with fresh tomatoes and avocados, right after Zannah mentioned she still hadn't eaten an avocado since arrive in Ecuador!  I ate both, after two men had been chatting with us and joked that we wouldn't be able to finish our lunch AND a piece of pie, but obviously we did. Among all of us we shared a few slices of lemon meringue, apple, and delicious blackberry. They were huge and warm and came with ice cream. Of course at this point, I had run out of money and my ATM card refused to work, so the borrowing began. I almost went home because I had enough for the bus back to Quito and a taxi home, but thankfully the girls convinced me to stay...wait til you here what else we did!

We returned to our hostal for a bathroom break and to get ready to set out for a walk. We were in two different rooms, so after my room had gotten cleaned up we went upstairs to get the rest of the crew. We ended up chatting for a few hours, until after dark. So much for walking off all that chicken and pie. We grabbed an extra layer and headed out to find something for dinner, since we really had been inside for a while and figured we should get something before it got too late. We walked around, found a gorgeous plaza, and began the search for the cheapest dinner possible. After talking about how much we don't love Hollister Abercrombie and other such stores, we found those exact places! Complete with Indigenous women standing in the doorway-I'm honestly not sure if they are the paid greeters or not! It was weird to see such commercialized places in a location that I was expecting to be completely remote and Indigenous. Tourism. 


We also ran into the main square, which was barely recognizable because it wasn't covered in stuff! We didn't even know there were these white posts that are numbered so vendors can create trails within the square. We also heard what reminded me of an ice cream truck song....except that it was the garbage truck! We think it's so that the store owners know that the garbage ppl are coming so get ready! but still, it was funny. We also heard a city bus with what seemed to be a recorded cat call whistle...you know what I mean, the whistle you do when you're checkin someone out, only I swear it was played from a sound system off a bus!

Dinner consisted of bread and cookies from 2 different bakeries, squeezable jam and a jar of honey spread with plastic spoons from the grocery store (Kara bought a whole pack, in pink of course) and a big jug of water that we poured into our own bottles. We got crumbs all over the floor, but that's okay, and then we played "hot seat" to get to know each other, since we all agree how much we hate "never have i ever". We still need to get to know Susanna and Kathryn though, because we were falling asleep and wanted to get up early for our next adventures!


I love our hostal-It was nice, and the woman who worked the counter was really sweet and let us check out but keep our bags safe so we didn't have to trek around with them all morning. But they might want to revisit their English translations...

Really though, if you go to Otavalo stay here. 6 bucks and it was close to everything!


We ate Sunday breakfast at a cute little restaurant after we couldn't find "Casa de Fruta" anywhere. 3 American girls suggested the Tradicional, which came with cantaloupe juice, coffee or tea, bread, and eggs. Everyone got that but me, because I think my parents and Alliot make eggs a bit better thank Ecuador sometimes. I got a delish fruit yogurt granola combo and it was delish with seeds as the granola, a bit different but good, and there was some sort of marmalade that came with the unlimited bread that was to die for. 

Well, since we were once again running late, we thought it would be a good idea to check out of our hostal so that we wouldn't come back late and our stuff would be safe. So we did, and ran into this awesome man in the bus station that helped us find a bus to the waterfalls!

It was a short bus ride, but complete with a few musicians that could have had a bit more talent, singing and playing a mini guitar type thing. 

We made it to Peguche, where there were gorgeous waterfalls!  The 2nd pic here is  me and Hannah, in a different pic we posed as if we were filling the waterbottle from the falls, but the person holding my camera didn't have a good angle. The other one is me in front of another waterfall. We climbed up stairs-may I remind you that Ecuador is already at a higher elevation, as is the town where the falls are, so climbing was an adventure on its own. Anyway, after we got to the top of the falls and explored a bit, I climbed through a tunnel that you could see a second waterfall, or I guess a first one since it's higher up, so we took off our socks and shoes, rolled up our pants, and adventured in! i was a lil nervous because the rocks were slippery and I had my camera around my neck, but everything went smoothly and I grabbed a rock to remember Otavalo and the Peguche falls!


There wasn't a bus when we were ready to leave, so we figured we would start walking and catch one on the way. Well, we ended up walking the whole way back, but it was a gorgeous day so it was great! On the way we walked through a neighborhood that was a mix of really fancy and really poorly taken care of or abandoned homes. Everyone here uses broken class instead of spikes on the top of fences, and I captured a lil slice of America from this fence.

And here's where the best part of the trip comes into play!
We got back to Otavalo, and found stuff for a picnic lunch-aka bread (what else?) mozzarella cheese, and 2 giant and 1 small avocados, 3 for $1 from a sweet lady off the street. We found our trusty bus man again, who got us a driver to bring us to the lake and back, and wait for us for an hour and a half, all for $25. He stopped to get gas, and look Dad-Shell is everywhere! there was an awesome old school painted sign of "formula shell" closer to my house, but I never have my camera and it's not a very good area so I might never get a pic of it. But I thought you'd like this. (the pecten is next to HELIX)

Well, what a ride! We sat in the back of a covered pickup truck, and I was lucky enough to be right on the end and had one of the best views. There are so many pictures from the ride, but I thought these were some of the best to capture the overall idea. It was amazing!

I'm so mad though-there would have been some great shots of people: an old couple sitting together on the porch, a woman sifting rice out of a wheelbarrow, a man herding his cattle, but I didn't want my camera battery to die so I wasn't always at the ready! 

There was plenty of time to get good landscape shots, since we were riding constantly uphill for 45 minutes on a bumpy, dusty, windy, cobblestone road. 

We were dropped off at the lake, but decided to walk a bit more to find a quiet spot for our picnic lunch. We walked for a half hour, stopping to take pics and whatnot. Oh and we ran into our friends-some guys on motorcycles that had hung behind the truck long enough to give us thumbs up!

The lake was HUGEEE and it's called Mojanda Lake, more than 14,000 feet above sea level! The view was breathless, and we would have loved to climb higher up where other people were, but that would have taken hours with the altitude and we didn't have enough time or probably enough energy either.

We hunkered down into the grasslands to have our lunch! Some of us were a little hesitant going down, because the ground wasn't very tough and we slipped a bit but it was so worth it! We kept saying how cool this was. Legitimately, the best adventure I've ever had so far! Susanna used her Swiss Army Knife to open the avocados and cut the cheese (haha) and since I stole a cool looking spoon (NinetyNine! for my smc friends) from our breakfast, we had plenty of tools to eat lunch with! Zannah tried to throw the avocado pit into the lake, and we thought it was going in but it was a few feet short. Oh well.

The ride back down to Otavalo was gorgeous as well, but a lil uncomfortable as I gave up my good seat and had to hold on for dear life in parts. We grabbed our stuff from the the hostal, got delish ice cream, and found our bus man to lead us back to Quito. It was only an hour and a half back, and I took the longest shower in Ecuador yet! It was an amazing experience, and I'm so glad I have such a great group of girls here with me!