Mercado De Otavaleños

The evening of February 6th Colin came with me to the bus station and helped me get my ticket and on the bus to the city of Otavalo. I was on the bus around 4:00 PM and arrived in Otavalo around 7:00 PM. During the bus ride I passed numerous volcanoes, including one called Imbabaura in the ‘southern Ring of Fire’ - a mountain range arc of volcanoes caused by the Nazca plate being pushed underneath the South American Plate. “Papa Imbabaura” is considered a sacred protector of the region… at least until it eventually blows its top. Near the base of the volcano was a huge lake called San Pablo (originally called Imbakucha) and a sizeable settlement of people living around it. This lake is a tourist attraction, and the local people use its reeds to make handicrafts.   

Eventually we arrived in Otavalo. The first thing I noticed was young teenagers throwing water on each other in celebration of Carnival just outside the bus station. I grabbed a taxi and checked into my hotel, Hostal Otavalos Inn, which had incredible service by the very nice owner. She made sure I was comfortable and explained to me a few good places to get dinner. I headed out to see a bit of the city by the night lights.

The following morning, February 7th, I woke up early to attend the most interesting part of the Saturday market – the animal market. I walked over admiring all the embroidered white long sleeved blouses women were wearing along with their long, colorful skirts. These skirts are kept up (and decorated) with large cloth colorful belts wrapped around the waist and the women have loads of gold-colored beads around their necks. The men were not as colorful, most wearing simply dark blue ponchos. 

I asked a couple of these beautifully dressed local women where the animal market was and followed them there. I watched as cows and horses were brought in and bid on in a large, muddy pen. There were all kinds of other animals for sale in small, stuffed cages such as sheep, chicken, ducks, rabbits, kittens, puppies, and guinea pigs. I felt the worst for the massive pigs who were quite brutally kicked and dragged around by the local people who laughed at their screams.

After the animal market I headed back towards the Plaza de Ponchos which was also the clothing market. I saw beautiful clothing pieces (trying on a few of them) and bought a few pairs of fantastic decorative earrings including one with gold and green beads and another of bright blue seahorses. It was so nice to just walk around and shop for a while! I wandered through the fruit and vegetable market as well, buying some Ecuadorian plums and tomatillo to sample. (The plums were sweet and nice but the tomatillo was unimpressively mushy and watery.)

In the afternoon I thought I might head to see condors fly at Park Condor, and even met a couple back at the hotel who were interested in sharing a taxi with me. Unfortunately just as we were about to leave it started bucketing down with rain. Knowing that the birds wouldn’t be flying in the rain, I opted to take a bus back to Quito instead.

Francesca