Otavalo at carnaval

A church lit up at night in Otavalo

With unbelievable timing we were in Otavalo for the annual carnival, a four day holiday celebrating the beginning of lent. We both feel a lot safer here in Otavalo than Quito however there is a big risk that we will be soaked with water as one of the traditions of the festival is unprovoked water fighting in the streets. It mostly starts between the teenagers but we have seen all ages get involved and they don’t exclude gringos either! The first night we went for a walk around and as in a comedy duo sketch Ian moved out of the way of water aimed at us and without warning put me in the firing line!! To say it was a shock would be an understatement but with my soaked jeans we decided to take our revenge on the locals and we bought two bottles of cold water from a shop and went around the block to perform a counter attack! It went smoothly and no one was hurtJ



Herbs and Spices



A pig!

We decided we would go to the famous market that has made this town what it is today. Apparently over $3,000,000 is exchanged here in a year. We thought we would go early and see if we could get some bargains so we set the alarm for 7.30am, but in actual fact the market has a natural alarm that goes off around 6.30-7.00am, it goes “un dollar, un dollar, un dollar!!!” and although our hostel was out of the main Plaza de Ponchos where most of the market is usually set up, the Saturday market really is something different. It seems the market quadrupled in size and variety, we were impressed and spent most of a morning window shopping for beautiful things, it’s a damn shame we have to carry everything we own for the next month or it wouldn’t have been window shopping!


Beautiful handcrafted ornaments and woven materials

Looking through the market at Plaza de Ponchos



While close to the Crater Lake, Laguna Cuicocha at the foot of Cotacatchi Volcano, we decide to take a journey up there to check it out. It is a massive crater lake with two independant islands which you can take boat trips around, you also get to see the bubbles that rise through to the surface as a reminder that this area is still an active volcanic zone! Along the theme of water we walked up to the waterfall Peguche (armed with water in case of a carnival raid) and then we walked to the biggest fresh water lake in Ecuador, Lago San Pablo. We were out of energy by then though so we didn’t walk around it!!



The islands of the volcanic Laguna Cuicocha



Boat trip! Glad to have life jackets as the boat was practically sinking on one side!

 

Cascada de Peguche


So once we had had a good look around Otavalo and the carnival was finished we headed out on the 5am bus to Quilatoa…