Monday 5 August 2013

Shivering in a volcano

Day 68 - 5 de Agosto: Otavalo

Today was a great day overall. It started off with a nice buffet breakfast at the hotel. They actually had cereal and milk here, so i took advantage of this home confort alongside eggs, bread and fruit. Our hotel is about 45 minutes out of town, and today we would be seeing some of the major sites. Our first stop was in a big, old "indian" market in Otavalo. The tents that occupied an entire city block were arranged in a maze, probably to get people lost in their shopping. Although i'm not much of a shopper at all, a few things occupied my time here. I first started off with one of the guys, translating for him so he could barter. We walked about half way around the market, when I found something I had been looking for this whole time in Ecuador - old ecuadorian sucre coins. The sucre was the currency used here before the american dollar. He had a pile of coins, and i put together a good set. His starting price for these blew me away - $80! There was no way. However, i had no idea how much these were worth - my sister's the one with the coin collection after all. After a fair bit of hesitation, he decided to throw in a really old coin, but i still though it was way too much. I decided to look for our ecuadorian guide, Carlos, to ask his opinion on their worth. When i couldn't find him anywhere, i noticed an internet cafe on the other side of the road. With this 80 cent internet, i checked out some of the values of these. Afterwards, i returned, knowing that they were worth much less and bartered him way down to a reasonable price. I was pretty proud of my bartering skills - all in spanish too! I finished off my shopping by getting myself a pair of popular "jungle pants" (which at home would probably only be worn as pyjamas). They were nice. We then continued on to another market - a leather market. By this time, most of us were already shopped out, so not much was bought here. I went for a walk around this neighbourhood with another new member of the group. I'm glad im getting along with everyone. Our last stop was a neat one - we drove all the way to a large, active volcano. Although it hadn't erupted in thousands of years and its crater, was filled with rainwater, it was still cool to go for a boatride here and say that we were in a volcano! It was really cold up here though - to think that everyone would be wearing jackets in a volcano. It was a pretty quick ride, but it was fun. They had free cinamon tea here, which we drank traditionally (with sugarcane liquor). Most people put too much in and it just tasted like a strong, hot drink. When we returned, we had a bit of downtime. We played a card game called Mafia then i had a bit of time on my own, so i called home. For dinner, i had the breaded shrimp which was delicious. During dinner, the owners of HLD paid us a visit, and got a bit of a party started. In the parking lot, they had a car stereo blasting and had everyone dancing. As the night progressed, we went back the lounge area and continued playing mafia. This then progressed into a drinking game, which i stuck around for for about half the game before getting too tired and going to bed. Early morning tomorrow


The market
Walking at the leather market
Volcano
Volcano
Boating in the volcano
Bubbles from volcanic gases
Our hotel this time

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