(Okay, this is my second attempt doing this blog. Blogger eat my first one when Itwas just about complete!)
I left for the airport about 6am on Thursday, July 16th. My trip to Quito would have one extra stop beyond the mandatory gateway in Miami. I booked the ticket with the minimal air miles. Thus I had to go through Nashville on the way to Miami. It just turned out that the DC to Nashville flight would be the worst one of the day. That was all due to one small boy, about a 2 yo, who screamed most of the way. As we were deplaning in Nashville I overheard his big sister, about a 4 yo, complain to their mother that her brother's screaming gave her a headache. It would be safe to say she isn't the only way one he bothered!
The other two flights, Nashville to Miami and Miami to Quito, were uneventful except for the fact the Quito flight was delayed over two hours. It seems they took the plane originally scheduled for this flight out-of-service. Thus they had to wait for a replacement plane. Any way, the 'new' plane landed in Quito just before 10:30pm. Then it took a long time -about an hour - to go through immigration as they didn't have enough agents - probably due to the late arrival. The good news is that immigration took so long that my bag was waiting for me to go right through customs and out of the airport.
Right outside the airport doors was my man in Quito, Arie. He was waiting for me and was easy to spot as he had a jeep with a bike on its roof! I had booked accommodations near the airport through airbnb. Arie is the owner of the place. So I arranged by emails to have him pick me up at the airport. He keep abreast of my plane's delay and had perfectly timed my arrival.
So Arie drove me to place. My accommodations were in one of the two separate cabins build near his house. It was almost midnight by this time so I wasted no time to get to bed. (BTW, Arie's English was quite good - not too surprising as he is originally from the Netherlands.)
On Friday morning after a nice simple breakfast, Arie drove me to bus station in Pifo to get a bus to Otavalo, the market town. While waiting about an hour for a bus, a large group of young English backpackers came also for the Otavalo bus. In my experience, it is unusual for backpackers to travel in such a large group and these folks looked awfully young to boot. So I wondered what they were doing. Well I found out as for the bus trip I sat by one of the boys.
It seems they are all from a high school near Manchester, England. They had signed for a 30 day tour through an online organization which supplied them with a guide. The trip consisted of both staying in hostels and camping out. There were 13 kids and one teacher from the high school all of which had bought along their camping gear. Only one of which spoke any Spanish. That was one of the girls - not the teacher! Fortunately, she was near fluent. They now were on their way to Otavalo and to do their first camping of the trip. On arrival in town I left them and walked to my next accommodations. It is a studio that I rented also through airbnb. It is nice and only a block from the main plaza.
I think the couple I am renting this studio from live here when it isn't rented. As for now, they are staying upstairs with her parents and brother. I have met them all but only remember a couple of their names, Alexandra and Alfonso. The parents speak no English - kind like my Spanish ability. Last night, in the middle of the night, we had a very hard rain. It woke me up and I discovered it cut off the electricity. Fortunately by morning, the lights were back on. Still, I couldn't help but wonder how the high school kids' tents did in the rain.
Any way, both yesterday and today I walked and walked about the town. Today was much more interesting as this Saturday their biggest market day of the week. They close down most of the streets in town to set up the booths for the sellers.
As you can see, it I'd very colorful with lots of fun items:
Maybe you are interested in buying some dry corn, there are many varieties:
Or maybe you might like a handmade musical instrument:
After all the shopping you can stop and get some of the three toast pigs:
Actually the roast pig looked good but since I'm not a big pork fan I didn't try it. But if Andrew Zimmern were here, I bet he would have partaken.
As for good in general, I am not impressed so far. Yesterday, I had ceviche (seafood 'cooked' in lime juice with tomatoes, garlic, onions, etc.) for lunch and Mexican for dinner. Neither were great and both weren't much less expensive than in the US. Today I had pizza for lunch and then chicken, rice & French fries for dinner. These were less expensive than in the US but the pizza wasn't too good and why would they have French fries and rice with the chicken? Odd. The best food of the trip so far has been a piece of lemon meringue pie I had today. It was great - probably the best I ever had. I bought it at the Pie Shop which seems to cater to foreigners. I intend to go back there again!
I will be staying in Otavalo three more nights before I go back to Quito. I hope to do day trips the next two days...
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