Otavalo and Quito

Hi all!
Long time no post. It has been a while since we've been up north of South America but I'll blog about our last little bit.

After our amazing adventures in the Amazon and white water rafting we had a few days of "down time" in Otavalo and Quito.

Otavalo held delicious breakfasts (included in our accomodation, even better!), lots of markets to catch up on some birthday shopping, an amzing pie shop and potential danger.

Breakfasts were feasts of fruit and pancakes or fruit, yoghurt and granola.

Markets were brilliantly coloured and never ending with beautiful scarves, beads, delicious food, ponhos, blankets and everything in between. It took a lot to stop me from buying copious presents for myself :-)

Pie shop was cheap but massive pieces of pie with ice cream. If you're ever there, "The Pie Shop" is a must do.

Potential danger... My bag got slashed while walking through the markets. Nothing was stolen because there was nothing in the bag besides a jumper but it was still a shock to get back to the hostel and find a massive split in my bag through both sides. The scariest thing is that someone did that and was that close to me with a knife and i didnt notice a thing! Warning, keep your bag in front of you not behind!

We spent two nights there and then headed to Quito with a stop at the equator.

The equator was quite fascinting. We saw water spin in opposite directions on either side of it (although Alex went on to prove it was wrong via the internet... spoil sport), we stood eggs on a nail (well Al did I wasn't so successful), learnt about native Ecuadorians, saw an actual "shrunken head", a 7m Anaconda skin and had fun saying "Southern hemisphere, Northern hemispher, Southern Hemishere..." etc while jumping from one side to the other.
It was an interesting few hours. One thing has stuck with me, the only 3 rules that native Ecuadorians had... "Don't steal", "Don't lie", and "Don't be lazy". Good rules I think.

We then stayed 3 nights in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. This is where we left our tour and many good friends so we spent a lot of time hanging out with them. Lots of Puno was played and lots of drinks and dinners attended. We also did some sight seeing. The statue of the virgin Mary on top of El Panecillo, a wonderful view of the city.
Couldn't get into La Compañía (a church said to have some crazy amount of 'tonnes' of gold inside) but did go into and climb up many towers of the Cathedral of Quito, a huge and beautiful church.

We flew out of Quito on the 21st of April to Santiago... about which you will have to read the next blog to find out :-)

Lots of love.
x



A wheelbarrow *full* of stawberries at the Otavalo markets




Danika's the real Southern-Hemispherian in this pic... Alex is visiting the Northern :-)




A no-so balanced egg




Inside the Basillica in Quito




Not a good excercise for anyone vaguely afraid of heights - amazing experience though, and great view of Quito