The Market at Otovalo

Our guide Jose is always at least 10 minutes early.  Yesterday, he got stuck in traffic and was 15 minutes late - as a bonus, I got to see the peacock show his stuff.....

We hit the road to go visit the markets of Otovalo.  Our first stop was the livestock market.  It actually starts at 6 or 7 a.m., and we were there around 10, so a lot of the animals were already sold - but I gotta say, it was quite a sight!  Chickens in crates, and in feed sacks (didn't get a shot of that).  You'd see ladies walking around with two chickens in each hand, hanging upside down by their legs...keeps 'em pretty quiet carrying them that way.  There were crates (like the plastic bread crates for delivery to supermarkets) full of chicks and ducklings.  We saw pigs and piglets, cows and calves, bunnies and, of course, a food court. 

Oh, I almost forgot - they also like to eat guinea pig in Ecuador....

We watched some animals getting loaded onto trucks after they were purchased.  Our guide told us that the white pigs are much noisier than the others - and boy, was he right!  Andrei and I had a lot of laughs, because after this one pig got loaded (squealing the whole time!) he jumped out and they had to load him in again!

After the livestock market we drove over to big market, which has two main sections - meat and produce, and then regular goods for sale.  The produce section was really colorful, with all the fruits and vegetables and grains.  Huge, beautiful blackberries; biggest zuccinni I've ever seen; fresh shelled peas and beans.  They would display their produce in a big bowl, with a smaller bowl full on top - no scales there, the smaller bowl is the purchase amount. 

The meat products also had their own section - gotta say, the Board of Health would have a field day there!  No part of an animal goes to waste - planning on making chicken soup? get some of these for a nice broth....

Headed over for some souvenier shopping in the market - would have purchased a few more things, but felt hurried by Andrei and Jose.  Some things were so inexpensive that I didn't have the heart to dicker with them, but I did work it a little bit on one purchase. 

Grabbed some lunch at a 400 year old hacienda nearby, and while there we saw this little old lady from La Mirage.  We had had many laughs at her expense at dinner the night before, because when they brought out the Phantom of the Opera music box appetizer, she thought it was so charming that she cranked it up and played it about three times.   Wind that up one more time granny....

Then, off on a two hour ride to the Papallacta thermal springs.  As always, winding mountain roads that are only one lane in each direction - some interesting passing goes on there (uphill, past trucks).  There are groups of cabins built around pools, usually four or five in each cabin erea.  One of the pools is a 'polar' pool - which is aptly named (think of swimming in the rivers in the White Mountains) and the others are directly fed from the thermal springs.  Some are hotter than others, so you kind of pool hop to regulate your temperature.  We spent about an hour and a half in them before dinner, and then another half hour after dinner.  They even use the springs for heating - all the rooms have radiant heat in the floors, nice and toasty!  Best night's sleep I've had this week!

Kinda fuzza from all the steam vapors!