A trip to the north of Quito

This little piggy got too close to the horno (oven). He was hanging out on main street across from my hotel

Friday I took a bus from Quito to Otavalo. My first long bus ride, an hour and a half, into the countryside. We traveled with Sylvester Stallone in the form of a couple of movies playing on a screen at the front of the bus. Some kind of multimedia having Mister macho wrecking police cars on a highway at the same time our bus lurched along hundreds of feet above steep ravines. He arrived and we arrived so it was ok.

Chickens in the Saturday market in Otavalo piled high in one of the hundreds of stalls, yum!

Saturday I awoke in Otavalo to the sound of stalls being built in the main square and in the streets. Saturday is the big market day for the whole province (Imbabura). A friend from the expat forum on the internet met me that morning and introduced me to many of the merchants. For twenty years she had run a restaurant in the town and she knew lots people. She also spoke Quitchua, the inca language spoken by most indians in Ecuador.

A couple of spices and in volume, I was told what they were but it escapes me, no plastic packaging here!

Sunday I left Otavalo for Cotacachi. There I investigated apartments and a house. Unfortunately my ATM cards would not work in the only two machines in town....so I couldn't grab any of rentals I saw. Monday afternoon I took the bus back to Quito. If I am able to get money in Quito I'll return to Cotacachi. I think I'll finish the winter there. I can always continue exploring after I get the residence status, that hopefully, before March. A different environment in Otavalo and Cotacachi vs Quito, much more to my liking.

The Otavalo market has a wide variety but two major catagories are Food and Fabric, this is fabric in the raw