Hostal Valle del Amanecer Otavalo

... Its shapped like a person and is decorated in bright coloured icing.<br><br>After the festival we visited a fabulous lake which is in Cuicocha, there are islands in the middle of the lake that used to be used as prisons years ago.<br><br>And thats the end of that chapter...off to Mindo on Wednesday and then departing Quito this weekend. Still undecided where to go...am looking into the Galapogos<br><br>x<br><br><br><br><br>< br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

Having left Quito we headed north(?!?) to a town called Otavalo. The arrival here marked our first night camping, and more importantly my 1st night as chef! Soon after the tents were pitched me and my cooking buddies (2 polish and 1 paddy) rustled up a michelen star sausages, mash and veggy combo....I took charge of the sausages - all 75 of them! Feedback was that it tasted more like a bridgestone than a michelin, but no need for immodium so all good.<br><br>Following ...

... 50) where we buy our freshly-baked bread and dulces (sweets). A couple of days ago I bought two wonderful breads shaped like croissants but baked with cheese, and paid .12 each for them. Cream horns filled with lemon curd and topped with chocolate are a bit more expensive - .25 each. There's every kind of bread imaginable just waiting to be taken home, and it's all amazingly inexpensive. We buy produce at the bus terminal, of course, but there are a bunch of tiny ...

... I´ve traveled that road by bus, horse, moto/dirt bike, in the back of a large truck, small truck, milk truck, and on foot. And i would have to say that my favorite was in the milk truck - i had the back all to myself, along with about 8 big metal containers of cow milk being collected from various farmers along the way. <br><br> I arrived in Cuellaje to find that my timing was perfect: the whole parroquia was in fiestas, celebrating 45 years of officialy ...

... stores of Cotocachi. I wish we could have given him more, but we were honestly low in funds. <br><br>Lessons I learned from this trip:<br><br>1. Go with your gut feeling.<br><br>2. Sometimes episodes on TNT (such as The Closer) can become reality and watching them could save your life.<br><br>3. There&#8217;s such a thing as too nice.<br><br>4. There may be advantages to being a &#8220;chronic, paranoid worrier.&#8221; You never know, being one may save your life.

On the 30th April 2009, we posted a blog entitled 100 Not Out! From Trujillo, Peru. In this blog we listed details of our journey so far including a list of our favourite places as well as a list of things that we were missing from home. It has been bought to our attention ...

... a bird rescue centre and got to see the impressive Andean Condor up close...that is one big bird!! The highlight of the weekend though has to be the impressive pies! Apparently Otavalo's famous for them...and we were not disappointed...we go all the way to Ecuador and end up spending our time writing home about pies!! ;-) On our final walk down the hill from La Hesperia to ...