Otavalo
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2008
1
21
61
Trip End
Apr 01, 2009
Otavalo,
Ecuador
Monday, December 8, 2008
I´ve ever seen I think I saw all of it, I spent 4 hours trying! As I
was awake at 6.30, due to the baby next door, I got up and had a look
at the animal market on the outskirts - I found it by following the
protesting domestic aminals being led/dragged there. The first field
was full of baskets of chickens of all sizes, ducks geese, turkeys,
rabbits, guinea pigs, puppies, kittens and piglets (oh how I covetted
the tiny ginger piglets!). There were bigger pigs, goats, sheep and
cows in the serious buyers´ field. Surely it wasn´t that long ago the
same could be seen in the UK?
The food and crafts market was at least 10 blocks square and I
managed to restrain myself to just the one replacement handbag. There
was a guy selling his own original watercolour paintings of local birds
which were utterly exquisite and if I´d had a home I´d have bought the
lot. All the other "art" was either prints or copies, but this guy´s
pictures were magic.
And if you ever need a red indian chief's war bonnet, shaman's feathered headdress or any size of dream catcher i know just the place.
It was weird seeing fresh strawberries for sale on a perishing cold December morning.
I was going to buy Jon a mad ski mask - full facial cover, eye
slits, beak of a nose, mouth flap and rainbow dreadlocks from ear to
ear - but I couldn´t find one big enough. Discovered the next day that
it´s actually the mask of Inty Raymi, the god of the winter solstice,
and a real big deal in Cusco, Peru, where there´s a 7 day festival in
his honour. Don´t recall seeing the masks in Cusco though.
They have amazing street lights in Otavala, must be custom made as I've never seen anything like them - shame I didn't have a camera to record them for posterity.
Did quite a lot of walking in the surrounding hills, round the
lake and to the waterfall, which was where I found out about about Inty
Raymi and the solstice as a ceremony is held there too. Amazing how
these pre conquest beliefs still thrive in the 21st century in the
Andes. I´d love to see the Himalayas to compare/contrast.
There are no shanty towns around Quito - amazing for a South
American city. I can only think the really poor still live in the
mountains.
Anyway I´m back in Quito now.
