Hosteria Jatuncocha Imbabura

... insensitive for thinking this? LOL

Lunch was in a local Ecuadorian restaurant where we joined a party of three in the 'private dining room' (a semi attached, covered courtyard against the side of the restaurant with a TV playing bad Ecua. music). The guys had settled in for the afteroon in preparation for the Colombia v Ecuador World Cup qualifier and as they had already had a few bevvies, entertained us with a lively debate about the cultural differences ...

... many, even going so far as to backfire loudly early on. This brought looks of concern to all three faces in the van, but our driver finally just shrugged and said "no problema". Fortunately for us, he was right.

Al long last we passed through Otavalo, made the turn off the Panamericano, and came into Cotacachi after one final protest from the van. Since this is a small town (village? pueblo?) I hadn't bothered to get directions to our hostal, and, sure enough ...

... which itch like mad and are hot as hell. I went to the farmacia last night and indicated my problema, she gave me Calamine lotion. It's taken some of the heat out of them but I still want to tear my legs to bits. The Valle de Chota struck me as an interesting place. The inhabitants of the little towns we were passing through were mostly negro and in some of the places I saw signs about festivals celebrating black art and heritage. The valley is ...

... and thrilled at the same time. Iīm here on very different terms this time (alone, rather than with 25 other American students) and yet itīs been as exciting as ever. Studying abroad here was my first real experience in another country and there is something about that first time that just canīt compare with anywhere else Iīve been since then. I think that is another reason it is so exciting to be back. Ok, on to the good stuff...

I spent a ...

... 8220;Let’s hurry,” she said, and we quickly flagged down the nearest taxi coming towards us.

We ended up staying at Residencial Madrid, which was within the center of the town. “This is so much better,” I said, when we settled into our room. I was thankful that we wouldn’t have to sleep with our eyes open that night. We wandered the Ibarra streets that night, taking in the peacefulness of the city, and delighting in the ...

... garbage we found on the ground indicated that other people had been there before, but it seemed more like we were making our own trail at this point.

The forest ended and a marshy swamp started. And this took forever to walk through. In the drier season this flat ground would be a cinch to walk through. But early July is not dry enough and we sunk into just about every step. We weren’t prepared for that and didn’t have rubber boots. Eric lost his shoe ...

... best and shining with excitement. We hopped on a bus to Guayabamba, a town about halfway between Otavalo and Quito. Despite its middle-of-nowhere appearance, the zoo was actually quite nice, and hosted a fairly impressive collection of animals. The kids ran from one exhibit to the next, excited to see what exotic animal was hidden around the next corner. After strolling past a variety of monkeys, large turtles, exotic birds, jaguars, bears, etc. we stopped for ...

... zu reissen.
Der Bus nach Otavalo war auch leicht zu finden und
meine erste Busfahrt von nur zwei Stunden war recht schnell vorueber.
Der Eindruck nach wie vor, dass alles sehr gruen ist. Viel Verkehr,
teils recht chaotisch.
Der Bus faehrt fast leer los und innerhalb
von wenigen Stopps (keine offiziellen, diese per Handzeichen) ist der
Bus voll, aber nicht ueberfuellt ...

... dirt roads through beautiful farmland with cows, sheep, chickens, and many noisy dogs who were none too happy to have us tromp through their territory with a much bigger dog. When we arrived at the rock, Eduardo changed into "traditional" Inca dress and proceeded to show us a ceremonial dance, which was done to celebrate victory in battle. He then demonstrated a victorious battle, in which he slaid the "enemy" (my brother Aaron) with a lance, cured him with a plant ...

... s history, social climate, political situation and lifestyles. For instance, outside of the big cities, it is very common to see women (in classic Andean clothes) pushing the laundry in wheel barrows and washing it in the river or aqueducts. In Quito middle and upper class people have washing machines, not driers, and rarely dish washers. The min. wage is $200/mo. If that's a 40 hour work week it would be ...