Hotel Santa Fe Otavalo

... and lived most of her life in London. Very interesting lady and her daughter Rita was fabulous to chat with.<br><br>Day 1<br>Arrival at Roses Cottages, I was the only guest! So I was waited on hand and foot. Rose took me up the top of the mountain called Mojanda which incases a fantastic crater lake. I had the whole mountain and lake to myself, I walked for about 3 hours and didnt see a sole...was quite a bizzar feeling.<br><br>In the evening I had dinner with ...

... paid him $12mil pesos and walked into the Ecuadorian Immigration office. There was no queue, we filled in a very simple form for each of us, lined up and within 15 minutes had our passports stamped, and we were in Ecuador. They did not need any evidence of where we were staying or going, only verbal indication that we were heading for Peru next.<br><br>We strode out of the immigration office, passed a line of entrepreneurs offering transport, over to where there where several taxi&#8217 ...

... 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.<br><br>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 ...

... leaving me to get bitten to death. of course they weren't the actual bugs, but the same type, that had bitten us badly while we were camping, we think they are sand flies. It must be something about being at that height, round the 1600 mark, because for the next few hours, whenever we were going slow enough (which was most of the time because we had started climbing) or stopped, we were badly bitten. I have reacted badly, my legs are covered in red ...

... stay and continue shopping. In any case we packed up once again and grabbed a taxi for the bus terminal. While we waited for the cab we chatted with the girl who worked in the restaurant of the hostel. She explained that she&#8217;s 31 and single, but she doesn&#8217;t necessarily want a family right now anyway since she has 11 younger brothers and sisters that she works really hard to help provide for. She proudly told us that 4 of them ...

... discussing plans over pizza, the three of us decided to gun it to Laguna Mojanda while Aden headed back to Quito. We tried to find a bus to the lagoon, but I don&#8217;t think any go there. Then we ran around and tried to find a cheap taxi. After wasting 45 minutes running around trying to find a decent price, we jumped in a $8 cab and headed out to Laguna Mojanda. After 30 minutes in the cab, we could see why this cab ride was higher than the standard couple of bucks. It ...

... Quichua. We had a lunch of fried bananas, black beans, avocardo and pie! After lunch we caught the bus back for more shopping. By the time the market closed we were exhausted, we caught the bus to Quito and arrived there quite late to Jean´s appartment. Just a side note, the people selling stuff on the bus come on and offer you food, one guy came on and handed out biscuits, he then did a talk about them and came back making you pay for them... it was weird.

... checking in at the hostal, I wandered around the city a bit, and had a hearty dinner at a chifa, which is allegedly a chinese food restaurant but really an Ecuadorian/Chinese fusion type place. I had a rice and chicken dish that was plentiful and delicious. The highlight of Otavalo is the Saturday market, where local indigenous people display their textiles and handicrafts for sale. I was taken in by the variety of colors and various knick knacks available, but didn't ...

... injections. But I was soon to find out, that due to legal reasons neither the chemist nor the hospital was willing to inject me.<br> <br> Then my host father, Jaime, suggested I go see their neighbour Monica who is a trained nurse.<br> <br> When a Jehovah´s Witness knocks on someone´s door, what he essentially says to the occupier is: "Hello, I´m a complete stranger and I was just wondering if I could convince you to change your entire belief ...

... 10 just to complete the gringo look, and Kara initiated the process of buying gifts for friends by buying herself a silver necklace...or two. We bartered with the vendors and probably averaged discounts of maybe 20%, which was enough to make us feel like we were not paying a premium. The labor that went into the items we bought was obviously extensive, and the prices already really affordable, so we didn't haggle too hard.