El Ombligo del Mundo: Mercados y Cascadas: Otavalo

from the bus on the way to Otavalo

The weekend after Carnaval we decided (I guess) that we hadn't had enough traveling lately so we left Saturday morning and headed north two hours to a town called Otavalo. Otavalo is known for its weekend artesanal market, one of the largest in all of Ecuador. You can find paintings, wood carvings, hand-knitted clothing, jewelry, hammocks, wall-hangings, delicious food and an infinite number of other things. There are literally hundreds of individual shops. Our group of ten or so spent Saturday (the biggest market day) exploring the market looking for trinkets and gifts for friends and family. The market is incredibly beautiful and colorful, so I took a lot of pictures (check 'em out). After the little booths started to close down, some of the group left, but a few of decided to stay the night at a hostal and explore more the next day.

Ted & Jennifer

Sunday morning the market wasn't as big, so after breakfast we took a ten-minute bus ride to a nearby national park, home to La Cascada (waterfall) Peguche. The hike to the waterfall was relatively short but beautiful. The waterfall itself is rather grand, it's hardly small, but it's not the most exciting thing in the world. However, you can keep hiking up to the top of the waterfall and all around it. At the top of the main waterfall was a large tunnel carved through the rock where there river went. We climbed through a small cave and were able to wade up the stream a little ways where we could see another waterfall. It wasn't quite as big of a drop but it went through the tunnel, so it was really cool. We hiked all over the area, up over the tunnel (really the tunnel is like a big V with one tiny rock bridge going over it), and on the hills and cliffs around it. It was pretty scary and unsafe, but beautiful and a lot of fun. Pictures coming.