Vista del Mundo Hotel Resort & Spa Otavalo

... br>Cannot begin to describe just how hot or humid it was there, or the state of my poor little white pins, which are covered in huge mozzie and sand fly bites, despite covering up and wearing full on dadio deet spray. Fashion went completely out of the window and at night I was sporting a delightful sock / flip flop combo...with trousers tucked into socks....sexy eh!! This place is amazing and mozzie bites are a small price to pay for being lucky enough to experience ...

... sorts of tourist and religious items, and some food stalls where we saw our first sight of roasted guinea pig. As we made the descent, which was a slow descent over about 800metres the church came into view. It was more like a cathedral and every step we got closer the magnificence of it grew greater, so much so that once we arrived at the church itself I was ready to turn religious, throw in my entire life and apply to become a resident priest. It was huge, more like a cathedral. It was ...

... a big produce department. When you want Prego or Ragu spaghetti sauce, you go to Super Maxi. The bus from Cotacachi stops in front of La Plaza, where Super Maxi is located, and you can catch the return bus right across the street. La Plaza, a small shopping center, includes a Fybeca drug store, where we buy all our toiletries, a Kentucky Fried Chicken, a bunch of clothing stores, Kywi, the local version of Home Depot, and a great little coffee shop where we stop and ...

... must go to the beautiful Milky, our new found friend at La Luna. Milky is a pure bred Argentinian Ridgeback and while the size of a small horse has a gentle nature similar to a golden retriever (although we were told that early in Milky´s life he managed to kill a sheep, goat and cow).<br> <br>Otavalo was our final stop in Ecuador before we head south to Buenos Aires, Argentina for the spring.

... do have, you share it with everyone. Especially in fiestas, children are given a few extra coins and they dont just buy things for themselves, they buy an ice cream for everyone (maybe 5 or 10 cents each) or a package of sunflower seeds that you can pass around and almost insistingly give away. As much as I didn´t want to accept things from kids who have so little, I realized that I can´t turn them them down because it makes them so genuinely happy to get ...

... that I was accessing my account from a foreign computer and sent me through my security questions-which I had forgotten. We have moved so much I had no idea as to what phone number or address was saved. It took me two hours to figure out how to transfer money from my savings to checking account and pay the lousy bill. <br><br>We had to make a phone call to clear everything up with the credit card company. This simple call ended in a brief chat with the police ...

... Emma to pay, someone came up to Augusta, our tour guide, and pointed out some mayoniase on the back of her trousers too and offering to wipe it off.. bit strange.. and even stranger when she started shouting at him in Spaninsh which I thought was a bit rude. After all he was only trying to help?!? Turns out this is what the petty criminals in Quito do. They flick mayo, yoghurt or other equivilants on you from behind and ...

... local museum which was had to be unlocked for us to look round. Needless to say it wasn´t the best! We´re both looking forward to a good meal this evening, a meal which is thoroughly deserved. To say that we´ve hit the ground running is an understatement! Tomorrow we plan to head south of Quito to a national park. Again the photos we´ve managed to upload so far (it takes sooooooooooooo long!) are at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelling iscool/ Take care all, Scott

... about 2.15am. Day 1: Slept for most of the day (exhausted after the previous day's travels) Day 2: Not much. After spending time on the internet backing up photos, sending emails, etc, most of the day had gone. Day 3: The day of the famous Saturday Market. We woke up at 7am to visit the animal market which was 1km out of town. Definitely the highlight of the day. The hustle and bustle, posturing, bartering and chatting of the indigenous Otavalean population as they swarmed ...