Otavalo (It's alpaca! It's the finest quality, look at it!)

Last weekend we got out of Quito for a couple days, and hit the road North to Otavalo, a town known around the world for the products made by the Otavaleños.

We left Quito about 4:00 in the afternoon, and just over 2 hours on our tour bus later, we got to Otavalo, and checked into our hotel for the night.  It was  a pretty sweet hotel.  After dinner in the hotel restaurant we had some chill time, and then bed.

The next morning we hit the markets.  It was a great experience, and I learned that the vendors there are *very* good at selling their products.  I guess that comes from practicing all day, 7 days a week.  I'd be walking along, glance at a stall with blankets, and before I knew it there was a blanket unfolded and in my hands, with the vendor asking how much I'd pay for it, since bargaining is a part of the market culture.  The first price offered is always too high, and is usually immediately followed by a 'but for you, I will make a discount'.  I found 40% lower than the first price asked for was kind of typical.  The group also discovered that sometimes walking away was the best bargaining technique.  Many times that was met with a 'wait, wait, I will accept your offer'.

Here's some photos from the market.  Stick around after them, there was more adventuring over the weekend, involving volcanoes again.

Street lamp in Otavalo, I thought it was beautiful.

Alpacas made with real alpaca wool.  So incredibly fuzzy.

In the middle of the market there was food section.

I didn't get a picture of them, but they were selling cauliflowers bigger than my head.  If I go back, I'm going to get a picture with one of them.  The cauliflowers, I mean.

Once off the main, straight road, the market was a twisty-turney maze of colorful fabric.

I didn't buy any rocks here, I promise.  They were pretty though.

Felt hats made in Ecuador.  There were also Panama hats everywhere, since they're made in Ecuador, not Panama.

Some of the typical types of art being sold.  Painted flowers, pressed and painted recycled paper, and pictures made from leaves and flowers.

Alpaca wool ponchos and sweaters were everywhere, and super fuzzy and warm.

Painted and etched gourds.

Around every corner was more stalls with colorful bags, scarves, sweaters, and blankets.  After 3 hours of wandering I still marveled at all the colors.

Very comfy looking hammock-swings.

Blankets (cobijas) were all over the place.  The colors were amazing and bright, and I am now the proud owner of the fuzziest blanket ever.

Tablecloths and scarves in bright colors

Duffel bags.  Beautiful duffel bags.  I might be coming home with one, especially if I can't fit all my stuff in the bags I came with.  We'll see.

Our next stop was Lago Cuicocha at the base of Cotacachi Volcano.  It is a crater lake about 3 km across, formed ~3100 years ago in a phreatic eruption (for you geo people out there).  There are two lava domes in the middle of the lake.  We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the lake and then some of us opted to take a boat ride around the lake, for a mere $2.75.  It was a beautiful day and a beautiful boat ride around the islands.  The guide stopped on the far side of the lake and told us some of the history of the area and how the lake was formed.  So now I've mountain biked down a volcano, and rode a boat in the crater of another.  I love the ring of fire...

Overlook of Cuicocha, the dock for the boat ride is on the far left.

We got the coolest life jackets to wear.  Mine was about 3 sizes too big.  Thanks to Cole, Michelle, and Kristina for unknowingly being in my blog.

Going between the two domes in the center of the lake

Our next stop was in the town of Cotocatchi, where they are known for their leather market.  We poked around for just a little while, the market was nowhere as big as Otavalo.  I'm not too much of a leather person, but if I was into leather purses and jackets, I'd have been in heaven, the items were beautiful.

Some of the coin purses available.

The little mouse purse might have been the cutest one there. (Thanks again to Michelle)

One of the stores with leather coats

The view out the window in the bathroom stall I used.  It thought it was super pretty.

After Cotocatchi we stopped in the town of Cayambe for cafe and bizcochos, which is a specialty of theirs.

The bizcochos were very buttery, semi-soft biscuits that we ate with coffee or hot chocolate.  The chocolate came with sugar, and after tasting it I realized why.  There was no sweetening of the hot chocolate there, but it was very good with the bizchochos.  We also got string cheese, which was a thin square rolled up, so the stringing went the opposite direction as string cheese back home.  It was very good cheese, BTW.

And this was the view of Lago San Pablo and Imbabura Volcano we got to enjoy for a goodly portion of the drive.  Going home in the late afternoon sun, it was spectacular, as so much of the landscape here is.

Post Script for Geo-people: I saw just about the sexiest fold ever in one of the road-cuts driving back from Otavalo.  These road-cuts are everywhere, since there's a lot of hills and they just put roads in the sides of them and through some of the smaller hills.  Mostly stuff is flat or gently dipping, but amidst all that I saw a near-perfect anti-form and other folding that had layers going almost vertical.  Unfortunately I was too busy swooning over it to get my camera out fast enough.  (My seat mate on the bus was a little worried when I suddenly cut off in the middle of a sentence to go 'it's so pretty!!' while looking at the dirt at the side of the road)  If I go back to Otavalo, I'm going to be sure to sit on the left side of the bus coming back so I can have a second go at pictures.

Cotopaxi and other extreme sports

Meet Cotopaxi, one of the highest active volcanoes in the world (read at highest altitude, not tallest).  It tops out at 5897 m (19,400) above sea level and is one of the few places on the equator that has glaciers.  It isn't massively active, but steam has been observed at the top in the crater, and hydrothermal activity is present too.

I had the extreme pleasure of mountain biking down the flanks of Cotopaxi last weekend, and it was one of the coolest things ever.  We went with a tour company called The Biking Dutchman, run by a Dutch guy (go figure) who lives with his Ecuadorean wife in Quito.  For a mere $45 I had some of the most fun so far in Ecuador.

The day started at 7:00 am meeting outside a mall on the west side of La Carolina, meaning I had to get up at the unholy hour of 5:45 am.  (I may have still been a little late to the meeting point...)  We loaded in vans with the bikes on top, and drove South to Cotopaxi, about an hour and a half drive.  Upon reaching Cotopaxi National Forest, I hopped out of the back of the van to stretch my legs, turned around, and BAM.  Volcano.  Somehow I had missed the fact that it was getting bigger and closer as we drove.  Don't ask me how.  Volcanoes are usually somewhat conspicuous.

We stopped at Lake Limpiopungo for a short ~3 km hike around it.  There was a stunning view of the volcano across the lake.

We also ran into some wild horses.  No big.

After the hike, we drove in the vans up to 4500 m (14,763 ft) where we had a view of the base camp for hiking up to the top of Cotopaxi, as well as more than 180 degrees of Andean horizon, containing plentiful mountains, and 9 volcanoes.  On a really clear day, 11 are visible.  Did I mention that we super lucked out and had our trip on a rare clear day?  Our guide Fernando said that in the 12 years he's been doing these trips, this time of year there is maybe a 60% chance of having a view like we had.  Decent odds, but not that great.

The base camp for climbing Cotopaxi is visible behind me, it's the little white rectangle.

This was the view from the top of Cotopaxi, this area is known as the Avenue of Volcanoes.  Also, I'm rather proud of my panorama here, it was done in Paint.  If you click on it, a larger version will pop up.  (I just discovered that function.)

Driving up to our highest lookout.  There were lots of interesting roadcuts, for you geology people out there.

I'd say that layer has a lot of iron in it...

After enjoying the view and taking photos, we drove back down a little in elevation to the start of our biking trip.  Helmets were passed out, sunscreen was applied (most still got a little toasted) and we were off.

 
The views were amazing, the rocks weren't too big, and the loose sand dumped multiple people off their bikes.  I fishtailed more than once, but managed to stay upright the whole time.  We rode through a volcanic landscape dominated by pretty flat, and grass.  After ~ 8 km we had lunch next to an idyllic stream.

I took my artistic license with me on the trip.

 A wonderful, yummy, homemade lunch by the wife of said Dutchman, and ginger tea to drink.

Lunch consisted of noodle salad, meatloaf, some sort of savory pastry thing, ginger tea, and cake for dessert.  All home made, all delicious.

 Our view (other than the stream) was an old lava flow site.  It erupted from Cotopaxi on July 26, 1877 at 11:26 pm (according to Fernando.  I trust the date, maybe not the time.  I couldn't tell if he was messing with me) and made it to the ocean in two days.  Now there is slightly barren landscape, and some giant rocks like this one.

Another ~8 km after lunch took us farther down in elevation, across some streams and puddles (where I managed to get one leg good and muddy from splash) and out of Cotopaxi National Forest into more trees and farmland.  Down the road we ended at a park (described to us as 'a park for little kids' by Fernando, but that we took over with enthusiasm when we reached it).

Once everyone had arrive, the bikes were loaded back on top of the rigs, and we headed back to Quito with sore butts and hands, some with scrapes, most with sunburns, but utterly satisfied.

One more successful Ecuador Adventure for the record books

La Ronda

Thursday night we had a big fancy group dinner after class ended.  It was an evening filled with fun, food, and (surprise!) live music.  I did the tourist thing, and documented everything photographically, for your enjoyment.  So here you are, a fancy Ecuadorean dinner in photo form.
(Please excuse the crazy coloring in the photos from non-consistent flash-usage)

Now, to set the stage

We were up on a balcony area, so behind the camera is a railing looking down onto the rest of the restaurant, which had mostly smaller 4 person tables.

We had bread to start off with, this basket used to have rolls in it.  They might have gotten eaten before I remembered to get out my camera.  Size: approximately 1.5x a golf ball.

There was also a cheese-filled empanada (half circle, maybe 4 inches across?) after the bread, but it also got eaten too quickly for photos.

We had a choice of having our water glasses filled with water that was carbonated or not ( con or sin gas) which meant the meseros had to ask each person before using the proper pitcher to refill the glass.

Next up was ceviche con camarones, a cold shrimp soup.

It had shrimp, onions, and some other salad-y type crunching veggies.  The flavor was good, kinda tangy-with-a-hint-of-lime to it.

We had the option to put plaintain chips, some sort of nut, and popcorn in the ceviche.

Here is what it looked like after:

I didn't like the nuts too much, but the plantain chips made a nice contrast in flavor.

During this course, we had a trio of guitarists come serenade us.  I didn't feel like using the flash on them, so please excuse the slight blurriness of the photo.

Youtube link to some video of them playing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw-8xcLtCdY

 We also got to hear some La Bamba which was fun.  Three songs in total, and then they left to serenade other tables in the restaurant down below us.

Main course was next.  It was way too much food for me to eat, but I liked all of what was there.

This is, (clockwise from the top) cooked mashed potato blobs with some sort of sauce
(llapingachos), salad with avocado, onion, and tomato, (Mom and Dad, pick your jaw up off the floor, yes, I'm eating onions.  No, I won't necessarily continue this practice when I return to the States) fried plantain (plátanos fritos), hominy with onions and greenery (mota), and deep fried pork.  All good, the plate was huge.

Somewhere in the middle of the main course, a pan-pipe band arrived to play for us.  I didn't snatch any photos, but here is the youtube link to one of their songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zfT97RGfV0

Dessert was delicious, three kinds of ice cream and some pastry things.

From left to right is coconut, guayabana (soursop), and mora, meaning berry.  I'm not sure exactly which berry flavor this one was.  The square at the top had some thin sugary crunchy bread type layers, the roll at the bottom is some sweet pastry with sugar on the outside.  The syrups were two types of fruit, I'm pretty sure the yellow was maracuyá.

After dessert was the obligatory tea or coffee

Coffee is on the left, tea is on the right.  I got a kick out of the coffee cups, since they were kinda really tiny.  Here is one with a regular sized human male for scale.

Thank you to Cole for being an unknowing part of my blog, until he (maybe) reads this.

There was some really cool art in La Ronda.  I fell in love with their arches, which were decorative rather than solid, but yes 3-D.  And painted all rainbow.  It wasn't glaringly obvious with the ambiance of the restaurant, but I thought rather beautiful.

This painting was outside the bathroom, depicting El Panecillo, a hill in the southern part of the city with a winged statue of the Virgin on top of it.  We could see El Panecillo from the Centro Historico on our tour, and hopefully I'll get up to visit it before I leave.

This was definitely a satisfying and fun way to end our first week of classes at ACLAS.  And yummy.  That too.

post-script
I added La Ronda to my Quito map.
http://goo.gl/maps/322Ih