Otavalo!

What a glorious day in Otavalo! This trip is very much the highlights tour of Ecuador, especially focused on seeing the things Maddie has experienced and loves. I would love to come back and spend several days in and around Otavalo. But for now, we made the most of our day!

We headed out fairly early to get a yummy bagel breakfast and head straight to the market. Walking through the town we saw so many beautiful murals, and the sidewalks were all red. yellow and blue cement tiles. The town square had a gorgeous fountain.












Otavalo is an indigenous market town, and it holds the largest market in South America! The really huge market that takes over the town takes place on Saturday, but it's quite large any day of the week. And it did not disappoint! We spent a couple hours wandering through the maze of the market, scoping our souvenirs and gifts and doing a bit of haggling with vendors. We got some great treasures and just enjoyed the whole experience!

While we were at the market, some friends of Maddie's from Pintag texted and said they were headed to Otavalo! So instead of leaving right after the market, we decided to stay for the majority of the day to see if we could meet up with them. (Spoiler alert: the traffic was horrible so they didn't make it by the time we had to leave.) Maddie had heard of a waterfall nearby so we took a taxi to find it. It was a gorgeous walk and a stunning waterfall! It was sunny and warm, so standing in the spray of the waterfall was a great reward for our little hike. The trees and plants are gorgeous and everything smells like eucalyptus. It was a really fun way to spend the afternoon. 





We came across a couple cows




The sun was a lot!





Auguste, of course, has turned into the Pied Piper of stray dogs. He seems to be a dog magnet wherever we go and Ecuador has no shortage of street dogs. He loves them all and they love him!



After the waterfall, we made the 25 minute walk back into Otavalo and had a late pizza lunch. We also found a print shop to take care of some document issues I needed to take care of. Finally at about 6:00 we caught a bus back to Quito. It was about an hour and a half ride and from Quito we decided to take an Uber to Pintag. That was supposed to be about another 45 minute ride but turns out the main road into Quito was closed. Our poor Uber driver managed to navigate a VERY bumpy and pothole filled dirt road to get us into Pintag. It was not exactly what he had signed up for that night but he was very kind about the whole thing. So we didn't roll into our Airbnb until around 9:30 and we all fell into bed immediately.

It rained HARD and a lot overnight and I woke up to dueling roosters outside the window at about 5:30 (keep in mind that here on the equator the sun sets at 6 pm and rises at 6 am, 365 days a year!). I was a little salty about the roosters until I looked out the window and saw this gorgeous view of Cotopaxi and Sincholagua volcanoes in the distance. Amazing!!



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