Ignorance is bliss

On Friday last week, my mum offered to take me to Otavalo, this nearby town with a lot of indigenous people and markets and other cool stuff, so I took her up on that offer and we headed off on Sat morning. It was a little bit complicated managing to get on a bus that would take us there, but we eventually hopped on to one with enough room, and thankfully I got a seat (not a legitimate one, but it was a cushion on the floor at the front of the bus - better than nothing, seriously - especially when it´s for 2hrs). We arrived in Otavalo at about 1pm, so kind of late, but still just enough time. My mum bargained out a price with a taxi driver to drive us around for the day and take us to the sights, so after the negotiations we first headed off to Cuicocha.

Now I have no idea of any places in this area - I didn´t even look in my guide book, but I just let myself go with the flow and followed on with what my mum said was good. So we arrived at Cuicocha, and I find out that it´s this ginormous volcanic lake that was really really beautiful. Here´s a pic:

It´s like Quilatoa, but this time we were immediately at the same level as the lake, so we caught on a boat that took us around the lake, which was totally amazing. Here´s the boat and a view from the trip around crater.


The crater, which this lake fills in, is actually still active! And when the boat pulled up to the side of one of the inner islands of the crater, we could see bubbles coming up through the still water due to the gas (sulfur maybe? - the guide explained it all but obviously all in spanish, so i tried to get the general gist) coming from the volcano underneath us. It was pretty cool.

Back at the shore, we were given a coupon for a free canelazo to warm us up after the brisk lake breezes, but I didn´t feel like drinking alcohol so early in the day, so while I was waiting, I was kept entertained by this pan pipe guy serenading us all with Christina Aguilera´s "Genie in a bottle" - soooo hilarious. You don´t really know that song until you´ve heard it live on pan pipes ;)

So after Cuicocha, the taxi driver suggested that we go to the Cascades de Pegucha and I was like, sure why not - I´ve got no idea what it is, but sounds good. So we ended up at this huge park/forest thing, and I felt like I was right back in australia again. It was sooo similar - all the gum trees, as you can see from the pics below - the only difference really was the people present. I don´t think i´ve ever seen many Indians having picnics in Australia, so seeing that brought me back to reality of where I actually was =)

So here are the cascades - or rather cascade. I think there might have been another one, but it was a smaller one, which we didn´t have the time to visit. But this one was cool enough - really beautiful.

On the way out, my mum bought a bag of what I thought looked like little paper lanterns, but turns out they´re called ubilla and they´re fruit! You break the thin paper-like skin and inside the little lantern-y bulb is this tiny cherry/tomato-esque fruit that´s really really sweet. Totally tasty..


I thought this was pretty cool - there was this huge mountain overlooking the whole area, and it was an almost completely cloudless sky, but for some reason, perched right over the peak of this mountain, was this huge cloud - kind of made me think of modor or something from lord of the rings - like, what was that cloud really hiding? =)

By this time it was about 4pm, and we still hadn´t had any lunch, so we finally made it into the city of Otavalo, grabbed a quick fritada (whole combo plate of pork, mote, avocado and potato) and then finally hit the famed Otavalo markets. Unfortunately because it was the end of the day, most stalls were packing up and as some would know I have a thing about being in places that are in the process of closing - kind of freaks me out and makes me nervous, but I had to force myself to keep on looking and shopping because it was the only time I´d ever be there, so had to make the most of the time I did have. Here´s some pics I managed to take:

There were a lot of pan pipe stores and a lot of demos:

I haven´t seen any armadillos yet in Ecuador, and maybe this is why:

These are typical Otavalo women - they all wear the same thing: the black and white skirt, with a white flowy shirt, a black shawl wrapped around, hair tied up like a switch and wearing a lot of gold necklaces. Oh, and there was actually a baby in that sheet on that lady´s back - I saw it moving around. Don´t know how it actually breathes, but I´m assuming it´s all good.

So that was Saturday in Otavalo. On Sunday, the parents and I woke up at about 5am and headed off bright and early to Papallacta - this place about an hr from Quito, which has natural volcanic hot springs. It was a really beautiful drive there - here´s some scenery pics from the trip:

We managed to get to Papallacta at about 7.30ish - here´s a pic of me outside, just before entering. As you can tell, it was just a little bit on the cold side, so the idea of stripping down to get into a pool seemed a little crazy, but I soon found out that it was quite the opposite


There was this river flowing through the area and people would (as I did too) dip into the freezing freezing river, splash around a little bit while you could still feel, and then get back into the hot springs. I didn´t do that first though becuase it was cold enough just going from the change room to the pool, but I did venture in to try it later. Anyway with the actual hot springs/pools, seriously I´ve never been in water that hot before!! Getting into that pool for the first time was one of the best feelings ever!!!! oh man...everything just defrosted and tingled and I never wanted to get out. M&D you would have never wanted to leave - this would be like heaven for you guys. Hotter than any spa I´ve ever been into, and this wasn´t just one spa, but big pools all over the place - and all naturally heated.

That little mini waterfall thing in the pic on the right, was sooooo hot - i couldn´t even touch it directly, but just feel the water around it. Sooooo nice...ahhhh....

We didn´t have much time there because had to rush back to Quito so I could catch a futbol game, but we did have time to stop off for some choclos con queso (white corn with cheese - yes those white thick squares in the pic below are cheese) and we then raced back to Quito.

It was complicated and difficult to meet up because huge masses of people, but managed to in the end meet up with Danilo at the biggest stadium in Quito to watch the Barcelona v Liga match. They are really really bitter rivals and that manifested even before the game had started. First of all, the fans had to be separated into different stands, which were divided by huge wire fences and riot police with big shields and batons wielded at the ready. And even before the players had come onto the field, Danilo and I had to quickly run for cover because rocks had started to be thrown between the stands and not just pebbles, but huge rocks! So crazy. The stadium stands were double levels, and at the top were the Barcelona fans and the Liga fans were down the bottom, and at the start I wondered why a lot of teh liga fans had umbrellas. I thought it was just for the sun, but turns out they were more useful in protecting against the rocks and many other assorted items that the barcelona fans would pelt downwards into the liga stand. At some point during the game, I felt something hit my leg and looked down and there was this balled up nappy (or diaper for you american readers ;) ) - *shudder* soooo disgusting. I didn´t dare to look to see if there was anything in it - I just tried not to think about it. Anyway, unfortunately Barcelona lost (again) and the Liga fans were obviously ecstatic, and the barcelona fans obviously irate. Danilo and I started to make our way out of the stands early to avoid the inevitable chaos after the game ended, but when we got to the doors to exit the stadium, we were blocked by police and it turned out that every single person from our stand, which were the barcelona fans, had to wait for like 40min while the liga fans left first. This was a preventative measure against fights breaking out just outside the stadium, which is so crazy that they actually need to do that. I would have been quite scared if I had been one of the policemen because at first all you have is sad or frustrated barcelona fans because we had just lost, but thanks to being barricaded in while their sworn enemies get to leave first, it soon becomes a very very angry mob, kicking doors, pushing, swearing and everything else. I think eventually someone kicked open one of the gates and everyone crushed forward and burst out into the open. It seemed like all those measures were all for nought anyway because when we got up to the main street, I could see a huge group of policemen on horses rushing over to break up a huge fight that had broken out. I guess maybe it´s not so much for prevention as minimisation.

After all this south american futbol madness, time for some lunch, so we headed to the market where I tried the local speciality - jugo de alfalfa con huevo or alfalfa juice with egg!!! Sound weird? It totally is - it´s this fantastic green colour though and I think they put in scoops and scoops of sugar, so it doesn´t taste like alfalfa, but more like apple surprisingly. Not sure what the raw egg added to it does for the flavour or consistency, but that wasn´t bad either. I didn´t have my camera with me, so sorry no pic. Maybe next time.

Back at home, I quickly threw together some brownies that I promised to make for people at work, and then Danilo and I headed out to see Transformers, which was very cool.

Anyway the reason I say "Ignorance is bliss" is because I´ve got absolutely no idea about places in Ecuador and I just go along because people say it´s good, but they never really elaborate about it all, so when I get to these recommended places I don´t really have any expectations, so I´m completely surprised by everything and that´s probably heaps better than knowing too much and being disappointed (not that I think that´s possible here).

Oh and just a quick note about my work - it´s going pretty well. Only two more weeks - can´t believe I´ve been there for 6 weeks already. But it was cool this week because Kathy brought in some colouring books and other stuff and we got the kids who inevitably peek their heads around the corner to check out these foreigners, to actually come in and colour in stuff while they´re waiting. So that was fun to give these kids something like that.