Otavalo and Tulcan - our last taste of Ecuador before we're shoved out the door

After leaving Quito we had one more stop to make in Ecuador before getting to the border.  Everyone talks about Otavalo, which is a small, mainly indigenous town about 2 hours north of Quito. It's famous for its market which is the largest Indian market in South America. And even though we don't really have the space to buy anything for ourselves or others, we couldn't miss it.  

The main plaza in Otavalo.

We arrived on a Thursday afternoon which turned out to be good timing, as if we'd arrived the next day we probably wouldn't have found a room. This was because we were just in time for the Yamor festivities, which are held every year to give thanks during the corn harvest season. On the Friday night there was a big street parade to celebrate this time of year and Kurt was lucky enough to be singled out by someone in the parade and given some Yamor to try, which is a traditional liquor made of fermented corn. The parade was a mixture of all different kinds of music and dancing, with groups dressed in different costumes, and the people strutting their stuff ranged in age from about 8 to 98. 

The crowd were all getting into it, and showed their appreciation by rewarding one particularly spry and enthusiastic dancer of about 80 with a glass of beer which he sculled in seconds. Well earned old boy. There were also floats throughout the parade with young women all dolled up and hoping to be crowned the Queen of the festival at the end.  A couple of them even had the royal wave so down pat they put Queen Elizabeth to shame.  They'd clearly been training hard for the occasion.

Twinkle toes earning his beer.

The Otavalo market is on every day, but Saturday is by far the biggest day of all. We started by going to the animal market which is only open from 6am-10am, and is where all the locals buy and sell their creatures, large and small. There were cages and pens of chickens, guinea pigs, cows, pigs, sheep and even kittens and puppies. You have to leave all your animal rights principles and indignation behind as their comfort and well-being isn't high on the list of priorities for the locals. But it's as real and authentic as you get, and we got to see how they live and conduct business without any glossing over for tourists, so it was interesting to see.

After the animal market we headed back into town to wander around the artesan market, which spreads out over several streets and blocks in a riot of colour and noise.  There is stall after stall selling locally woven textiles, jewellery, musical instruments, dream catchers, leather goods, indigenous costumes, hand-painted platters and trays, purses, clothing, spices and food.  After some careful comparison and skillful bargaining, Kurt had himself a couple of local Ecuadorian football (soccer to us) shirts. We managed to resist the imploring calls from all the other stalls to buy their wares. Such is the blessing of having nowhere to put it.  

After randomly running into Anna and Aaron (the Swiss couple) who we hadn't seen for a few weeks, we had to jump on a bus if we wanted to make it to the border town of Tulcan before dark. After waiting about 40mins in a long queue that wound through the bus station, we finally got on our first bus. 45mins later we had to change buses, but had another hour wait til it arrived.  So, after a few hours we finally made it to Tulcan and thankfully found a hotel just before it got dark.  Some Tulcan stats for you: capital of the northern Carchi province; the highest city in Ecuador at 3,000m; 7km from the Colombian border; complete and utter shithole.  Thank god we were only going to be there for about 17 hours. Unfortunately we discovered that our hotel was on top of a club that played the horrible, mind-numbing crap we heard everywhere, where the bass line was exactly the same in every single song. Not really the kind of soothing lullabye we were after.

The next morning before we crossed the border and said goodbye to Ecuador, we thought we might as well check out Tulcan's big drawcard - a topiary garden cemetery. I was a bit skeptical. I mean, how cool can some pruned trees really be? Pretty cool as it turns out. The whole cemetery is full of different types of shrubs and trees pruned into weird and wonderful exotic shapes of animals, angels, geometric shapes and Incan symbols. It's also a functioning cemetery so it's free to the public, and luckily it was quiet on the early Sunday morning we were there. And while it was seen as a bit odd when the creator first started his Edward Scissorhands act on the trees in 1936, it soon became a well-respected site. So much so that the creator is now buried there and his five sons continue his work.

It was finally time to get to the border and officially check out of Ecuador before we were kicked out. Despite the fact that the taxi actually drove us over the bridge to the Colombian side first and we had to walk back across to get our exit stamps for Ecuador, we had no problems.  Hasta luego Ecuador - we'll be back.

Quality time in Quito

When we first arrived in Ecuador we headed straight up to Quito which is high in the Andes (2850m) in the north of the country.  And even though it's the capital, it's the second largest city in Ecuador with a population of about 2.5 million.  The city is ridiculously long and spread out, so it takes an hour to get from either the north or south bus station to the city centre.  But public transport is really good and crazy cheap (only 25 cents no matter how far you go), so as long as it's not rush hour it's all good.

There are two main areas in Quito that are worth seeing - the Old Town and the New Town.  Pretty self-explanatory.  In the New Town there is an area called the Mariscal where the majority of travellers stay, as it's got shitloads of hostels, hotels, bars and restaurants.  In our first week there we ended up staying at 3 different hostels in a row on one street.  Just spreading the love around.  Our favourite hostel was the last one we stayed in, called Galapagos Natural Life Hostel.  It was quite a small place that would have accommodated about 20-25 people, and it was great.  For $8 a night we had a comfy bed in a dorm (only 4 beds and they weren't bunks) and one of the best breakfasts we've had so far - fresh fruit and yoghurt, scrambled eggs with fresh bread and home-made butter, fresh fruit juice and hot chocolate.  And the owners were an old couple that were just like everyone's grandparents and made the hostel feel like home.  So, if you're ever in Quito, we definitely recommend it.

In our first week, before we went to the Galapagos Islands, we did a couple of touristy things.  There's actually not a huge amount of things to see and do in Quito which we actually liked, as we didn't feel obliged to go out and do something every day.  Sometimes we just want to chill out and do nothing.  But we did go and wander around the Old Town, which has some beautiful old churches, cathedrals, convents and monasteries, as well as the Presidential Palace which is on the central plaza.  The changing of the guard takes place there every Monday at 11am, but unfortunately we didn't manage to get back for that.

Presidential Palace

The Church with the golden door.

The Monastery of San Francisco

It was a nice area to walk around for a while, then we got a taxi up to El Panecillo (Little Bread Loaf hill) where there's a huge statue of the Virgin of Quito.  The view from the top is amazing, as you can see the whole city stretched out below and also the surrounding volcanoes.

The statue of the Virgin of Quito.

Ecuador's biggest claim to fame is the fact that it's located on the equator.  About 22km north of Quito is the Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World), where there's a huge monument marking latitude 0^o0'0" on the equator.  However, because these measurements were first made in 1736 there was no such thing as GPS, therefore the monument, built between 1979-1982, is actually in the wrong place.  How embarrassing.  Even more embarrassing is the fact that so many tourists go there and get all these photos hopping over from one side of the 'equator' to the other, not knowing that they're in the wrong place.  We'd read about this before we went so we knew, but we wanted to go anyway.  It was funny to watch people blissfully unaware of their ignorance. 

Yes, we know it's in the wrong place, but we'll get a photo anyway just so no-one suspects we know.

 About 200m north of the Mitad del Mundo is a museum called Museo Solar Intiñan, which is located on the true equatorial line and also lies on a 1000 year old indigenous site.  Funny how the indigenous knew where the equator line was 1000 years ago, and French scientists couldn't figure it out just over 250 years ago.  This museum was a million times better than the monument as it had explanations of the lifestyle of the indigenous tribe that lived there, including how they shrunk heads (we saw one of the few real ones but weren't allowed to take photos). 

The REAL equator line at Museo Solar Intiñan.

Step 2 of the head shrinking process - remove skull.

 

Step 5 - insert hot rocks into empty 'head'.

Burial chamber of a Chief.

There were also some cool 'scientific' experiments you can do, like watching water go down a plughole in different directions depending which side of the equator it's on.  And it really did change directions when it was moved from the 'northern' hemisphere to the 'southern' hemisphere, and it went straight down when it was on the equator line.  Crazy.  There was also an experiment where we had to try and balance a raw egg (on it's fatter end) on the flat end of a nail.  Whoever could do it got a certificate at the end, proving they were an 'Egg Master'.  Of course both Kurt and I proved our skills at mastering the egg.  Was there really ever any doubt? Then there were a couple of experiments to do with energy and balance.  One was trying to walk along the equator line with eyes closed and arms held out to the sides.  Every adult who tried it fell over almost immediately, but kids, who have a lower centre of gravity, could walk along easily.  And we also tested out strength, which is almost non-existent when standing directly on the equator line.  The place was touristy, but really fun and interesting.  And it's actually the proper, GPS calculated location of latitude 0^o0'0" on the equator.  If only everyone knew it.

Quito, and in particular the Mariscal, is a big party town.  Across the road from our hostel was an Irish bar where we became regulars during our time in Quito, drinking the very average local Ecuadorian beer (Pilsener) and meeting heaps of other travellers and ex-pats living in Quito.  Two of the bar owners were actually Irish, so we got to watch a few Wallabies and All Blacks games in the wee small hours.  We also ate some great food, as there was an amazing variety of restaurants in the Mariscal that we'd been missing for months.  We ate Mexican, Indian, Thai, Chinese and Uruguayan steak.  We did also eat local food at a big market, mainly at lunchtime when we could get a set lunch for $1.50 - soup, main course of either meat/chicken/fish with rice and beans or salad, and a glass of juice.  We'd just wander around the market until we found a little stall with a menu we liked the look of then pulled up a stool. We have no idea how it's even possible to get so much food for so little, but our stomachs and wallet were happy.

The market where we ate our cheap, tasty lunches.

When we got back from the Galapagos we spent 4 more nights in Quito at the same hostel, and we were welcomed back with open arms by our 'grandparents'.  We didn't really do anything except drink and chill out before we went south to Baños and then to the coast, then we were back in Quito yet again.  We'd decided to do Spanish classes for a month as it seemed to be the cheapest place to do it, and we also really liked the city and were happy to settle in somewhere for 4 weeks or so.  We stayed another week at the hostel before someone recommended a cheap hostel up on the hill that rented out rooms long-term.  We only had to pay $225 for our own room for a whole month.  That worked out at $7.26 a night for both of us.  Can't get much cheaper than that.  And even though it was a struggle to walk up the hill every time we went out, it was worth it for the incredible view from the roof-top terrace. 

We were also finally able to cook for ourselves again, as there hadn't been a kitchen in any hostels for months.  So for a month we got into a routine of going to classes in the morning from 9am-12pm, then getting a cheap lunch at the market and doing homework and chilling out in the afternoons.  Our classes were also pretty cheap - $9 an hour for the two of us with our own teacher.  She was good and went over stuff we'd learned in Sydney, but it was helpful as it made more sense and was easier to remember this time round.  We also learnt some new stuff, and we're now finally able to use the past tense which is useful as we no longer have to sound like retards who constantly talk in the present tense.  But we ended up getting pissed off with the school, as our teacher was a no-show twice without anyone telling us in advance.  If we ever couldn't make it to class we had to give 24 hours notice, but the same rules apparently didn't apply to the staff.  So we decided to just spend the last week revising and studying what we'd learnt by ourselves, rather than get fucked around again. 

The final touristy thing we did in Quito was to go up the Teleferico, which is a gondola-type ride that takes you up the eastern side of Pichincha Volcano to the top of a massive hill lookout (4100m), with spectacular views over the city.  Claire, a German girl we met in the hostel wanted to do it before she left Quito that day, so we went along.  We walked a short way up the hill, but none of us were keen to make the 3.5 hour hike to the summit of another mountain.  We had a good enough view where we were and weren't in the mood for strenuous activity.

Our final month in Quito flew by, and before we knew it we had to leave if we wanted to see another place before our 3 months were up.  We loved Quito and it really became our home in Ecuador.  We learnt some more Spanish, ate great food, drank way too much and met awesome people in this city.  It's probably only the second place we've been so far that we could actually see ourselves living.  We were sad to leave Quito, but also excited as it meant we were on the move again.