otavalo

1-25-09
This weekend we did not have a scheduled trip so a majority of my group went to Otavalo, a small town known for its huge artisan market every Saturday (supposedly the largest market in South America.) We left Quito on Friday after school. I heard the bus ride was supposed to take anywhere from 1 to 2.5 hours, but was not surprised when it took almost 3 hours since nothing seems to run according to schedule here. We arrived in Otavalo found our hostel then went to a restaurant we read about in the travel book Lonely Planet for dinner. The main reason for going to this restaurant was we read it had hummus and we were all craving some Middle Eastern food. Unfortunately, when we tried to order our hummus platter… they were out. This seems to be a very common occurrence in Ecuador, but it is still sad when you were looking forward to something as much as we were looking forward to some hummus. But we were all starving so we found other things to order and the food was pretty good for about 2-3 dollars a plate. After dinner we meet up with some other people in our group and found out about some dicotecas nearby. By this time, 9 pm, it was rainy pretty hard but we ventured out in hopes of finding something entertaining. After getting many vague and faulty directions, another common occurrence here, we found the first bar. There was no one there. We went to the next bar, no one. We were all soaking wet so we gave up and headed home. When I got back to my hostel I realized my roommates were not home yet, and they had the key. I was with the 3 girls from the room next and they were nice enough to sit on the porch with me to wait for my key to arrive. By the time it reached about 11 we were thoroughly tired and my friend offered to share her bed with me for the night. I would have accepted, but I remember the windows to our room looked pretty sketchy and easy to break into, and as I predicted I pretty effortlessly broke into my room. My roommate ended up coming home around 1, and apologized profusely.
The next morning my friend Nicole and I woke up at 5:30am in order to go to the animal market at 6. The animal market pretty much like a farmer’s market, but with live animals. We were the only gringos (white/foreign people) there. We walked around for awhile, trying to avoid large bulls that looked like they were about to charge. Soon we got hungry and found a stand making fresh empanadas. They were 15 cents each and they were amazing. After taking lots of pictures we went back to the hostel to meet the rest of our group and head to the artisan market. The hostel owner made sure we all paid for our rooms before going to the market, a very good idea because many of s were left without money after the market. By the way, the hostel was 8 dollars a night and included a very satisfying breakfast. At the market we all had a good time bartering for the best deal and finding the coolest alpaca attire. For lunch some of us decided to try our first taste of street food and eat a wonderful meal of tilapia, potatoes, and aji. Aji is an Ecuadorian staple, it is pretty such like hot sauce and is slightly different at each restaurant or house. So far the Otavalan aji is definitely my favorite with just the right proportion of spice and onions. After our meal we went back to our hostel and sat in the courtyard enjoying the hammocks and beautiful weather. That night we planned to go to a cock fight, another thing we read about in Lonely Planet. The book said it started at 7 so we showed up about 10 minutes early to get good seats, but we couldn’t even get in. So, we wandered around the neighborhood for awhile and made friends with a stray dog to kill some time. Then at about 10 after we headed back. This time the doors were open, but we were the only ones there except for 2 other gringos. The arena was pretty gross with mushrooms growing out of the wall in the bathroom and bright green mold scattered everywhere. At about 8 the first cock and his owner arrived and we were hopeful that the show would start soon. Another hour passed and some more people came but it did not look like they had the slightest intention of starting anytime soon. At about 9:30 the chickens were all there, I don’t know exactly what was happening but outside of the arena the owners had their birds on a table in what looked like some sort of way to size then up and decided which were going to fight and who was betting on who’s cock. Finally at about 10pm, 3 hours after we arrived, the first fight started. It lasted for about 5 minutes and was a lot like boxing seeming to have multiple rounds and points given when one cock pinned another. It ended when one of the chickens was no longer able to get up. It took about 30 minutes for the next fight to start and this one was much shorter because the winning birds broke the others wing very quickly. After this fight I noticed some people we had seen earlier that day at the Animal Market. They had a large camera and were interviewing people at the market. Soon they came up to some of the kids in my group and asked them to answer some questions on camera about their experience. They agreed and after we inquired as to what it was for. It turns out they are from Spanish and are doing a documentary on Ecuador in hopes of getting it on Lonely Planet TV. Ironically the same guide book we had used to plan our trip, but also made sense that we saw them at 2 places which we read about in the book. The next fight was the worst, lasting a long time and a very uneven match. The losing chicken was bleeding a lot, at which time the owner licks the blood off and spits it out (ew). Near the end of the match the one chicken was actually running away from the other trying to escape the ring. Finally, the match was over and I had witnessed enough cock fighting to last me a very long time. I am glad I went it was an interesting cultural experience but I definitely never need to see that again.
The next day we slept in a little and ate breakfast at the hostel. During breakfast we there were some people sitting at the table next to us speaking English they overhead s talking about the cock fight and wanted to hear about it. Turns out one of them was originally from Wisconsin, and they all now live in Alaska, small world. After some wonderful Sarah Palin jokes we headed off to explore a lake about a 30 minutes bus ride from Otavalo. We got there and rode in the back of a pick-up truck up to the lake. This was the cheapest and obviously most fun option to get to the lake. We had about 10 people in the back of a small truck bed, clearly something that would not fly in the states. We got up to the lake and started to walk around. Me and 3 others decided to start walking around the lake, we knew that we couldn’t make it all the way around because it takes about 5 hours and we wanted to get back to Quito before dark, but we wanted to at least go as far as we cold. We got about a quarter of the way around before we had to turn back for time’s sake. The lake is in an old volcanic crater and the trail is along the mountain ridge around the lake. The view was spectacular despite some cloud obstructing our view of the Andes. Soon we headed back to Quito to get a good night sleep before class Monday.