Quito to Otovalo

Thursday May 26

We slept in once again and milked our primo Sheraton room. We even watched some awesome High School Musical 3, in English, as we slowly gathered ourselves. Still feeling it from our late arrival the day before we were OK killing some time.

I was perusing my Ecuador feed on Flipboard and after I thumbed through the myriad of soccer (futbol) stories about Ecuador's defeat to the U.S. I discovered that there were more earthquakes, large aftershocks, that caused damage, injury and death once again. This country is not that big, yet life just goes on out here further West where they are largely unaffected.

We checked out and left our bags at the hotel while we grabbed a quick bite at Subway. Sounds kinda lame, but it was close, the kids like it, and we can get salads there. After lunch the plan was to grab a street cab to the bus station and take the adventurous route to Otovalo. But...this is the Sheraton, and before we knew it we were in a classier cab and on our way. Still on our way to the bus station, but not for long.

Our driver, a female, was about the most polite cab driver I have ever experienced. She was also a good saleswoman. In broken English she began to inquire as to why we would ever take the bus. This, I am sure, is uncommon, if not unheard of, for guests of this high end hotel to want to take the bus. We told her the bus was muy interesting. Then she started to throw some numbers out for us to consider. When we got to the sub-$50 additional cost I was hooked and settled in for the ride.

We arrived at our hostel in Otavalo which sits up on a hillside overlooking the town which is nestled below 3 volcanoes. We had time to hike down to town and wander a bit. For dinner I had a little bucket of this traditional mix of potatoes, maize, meat, guacamole, cheese, and some other weird stuff. Tara was intrigued by the amount of food that came in the bucket, but most her stomach after seeing mine made. For $3 it was a ton of food so I figured I would give it a shot while Patti's food issues had her seek out french fries which is her internationally accepted food staple.

The kids got a kick out of the attack puppy that was guarding the casa. The little thing came up and was biting my ankles, just little puppy nips but it was hard to just sit there and take it. We were all doing the dance to the delight of the owners.

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