It has been a long time since I had accwess to a place where I could enter my blog, but I am finally back in Quito and I have lots of stories to tell.
As you know I went to Ibarra last Wednesday with Chris and his friends. I decided not to join them on Thursday and Friday which opened up a block of time for me with no schedule plans. So I decided to go to Otovalo for the weekend. Otovalo is a town about 2.5 hours north of Quito and it is famous for its markets of artisans and its animal markets
I took the bus and went to Otovalo Friday morning.
I spent Friday walking around the town getting familiar with the area. Otovalo is inhabited my many Indigenous people, most of whom dress in their traitional manner and they are very fascinating. However they are very relictant to have their pictures taken. They do not trust photographers and think that their images will be exploited commercially. This of course presented a serious challenge for me.
Saturday is the BIG Market day. The artisans market not only fills the central plaza that it fills every day, on Saturdays it spills over into all of the surrounding streets and it truly is an enormous event--more about that later.
In addition to the artisans market I really wanted to see and photograph the large animal market which is held in a huge empty lot on the edge of town. It starts at 6:00 AM, before sunrise. Saturday morning I had a taxi pick me up at 6:00 and take me to the market and I arranged for the driver to come back an hour and ahalf later to take me back to town.
The animal maket is quite an experience. Hundreds of mostly indigenous people come to this market each bringing a cow or a bull or a goat or pig or horse to sell. They stand in this crowd of anuimals and people with a rope on their animal and wait for someone to come by who may make an offer to buy their animal. It is chaos, yet it is such a slice of local life here I wouldn´t dare miss it. I had a ball. I took some photos from distance so that I was less obtrusive and objectionable. I also used a method called street photography that is just letting the camera hang from your neck and rest on your stomach, and without raising the camera to your eye you just point it in the direction you want to shoot and push the shutter button. No one knows you are taking photos and sometimes you get what you want and sometimes you don´t, but I have become pretty proficient at this technique and used it a lot to shoot people in public areas.
After I left the animal market, I went back to town and had breakfast. I hired a taxi driver to take me up into some of the outer areas outside of town to see some of the sights there, especially a gorgeous waterfall in an ecological park, and then we went up a mountain called Cotocachi that has a gorgeous lake high up on the mountain. We were gone about 4 hours and the whole trip was fantastic. Along the way the driver would introduce me as his friend to indigenous people and then they were very willing to allow me to take their pictures.
We camw back to town and I had lunch. Then I hit the artisans market. I bought a beautiful woven tapistry and some gifts.
When I wnt back to the hotel about 3:30 I met another guy, namd Robert, who was staying there who was also traveling alone. He had a car that a friend in Otovalo had arranged for him. It was a 4 wheel drive car about the size of a Toyota 4 Runner. He was going to exlore a back road up one of the mountains and asked me if I´d like to join him. I went along and we had a great time exploring the area and saw some fantastic views.
I came back and had an early dinner and went to sleep. I got up Sunday morning expecting to take the bus back to Quito, and had infact packed up all my stuff. But at breakfast the waiter told me that that same day they were starting a 10 pre-lenten Carnival and it would be a great place to take photos. So I decide to stay an extra day and go to the fiesta. About that same time the Robert showed up and said he was also going to the Carnival and asked me to join him. We went and it was so cool. There were hundreds of indigenous people all in trdional dress, lots of booths selling all kinds of local food, including roasted guinea pig. In fact they had the guinea pigs right there on a spit roasting over a charcoal fire, with the heads and little feet and all. (my apologies to anyone who has a problem with this descriptions, but this is an exsential part of local life). They had a queen and princesses, formal presentations of gifts to the queen of local produce and a soccer tournament.
While is was wondering around I saw another anglo with a Canon Camera on his shoulder. We started to chat and he introduced me to his wife and we decided to meet for supper at a restaurant in town. We had a great evening together. They are from New York and are big New York Giants fans. They were planning to come to Quito this coming Sunday to a sports bar that happens to be the same one. I had been in a week ago. They are coming this coming Sunday
to watch the Super Bowl. We dedide to meet at that same bar this coming Sunday and watch the game together.
Robert had told me that he was going to Quito Monday morning and offered me a ride. So I decide to accept.
We left Otovalo about 9:00 AM. All was well until we were about 20 miles out of Quito. We thought we had made a wrong turn and taken a wrong road. Roberte tried to make U turn, and didn´t see another car who hit us broad side on the drivers side. The adventure had suddenly taken a new and very uncertain turn. No one was hurt, thank God, but the other driver was very angry. Robert didn´t speak Spanish either.
The police came and I am thinking ¨this could be very bad¨. Amazingly the police officer was so laid back about the whole thing. He calmed the other driver and said no one needed to get upset, no one was hurt and the insurance comapnies will take care of the damage to the cars. I quickly learned that here in Ecuador all legal liabilities in traffic accidents are the responcibility of the owners of the cars, not the drivers. The driver doesn´t even get a traffic ticket. All the officer wanted to know was that both cars were insured.
Well, don´t you know that the car I was in had been borrowed by Robert from a friend of a friend and the car was not insured. Since I speak Spanish I am the one in the cell phone talking to the owner of our car and I learn this and now my heart rate picks up a little. I had to inform the police officer that our car is not insured. Again he was so laid back. He said no problem just tell the owner to come here so I can talk with him. So we waite outside the polce station in the Ecuadorean sun for 2 hours until the owner arrives. Luckily I had purchased a broad brimmed hat at the market in Otovaolo. Finally the owner arrived and he talked with the office assured him he had the finacial ability to cover all damages and that was it, we left. I took a taxi on to Quito and that was it.
Today I have my Spanish class and tomorrow Chris and I are oing to another large Ecological Park, called Cotpaxi, an all day trip. I will have more adventure to share after that trip.
God Bless you all.
Glenn+
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