The Saturday Market at Otovalo

We got up bright and early again to tackel the market. Unfoturnately we spent about 1/2 hour trying to get out of our hostel, the woman who worked at our hostel wasn't up yet and we were multi-padlocked in. We finally ended up knocking on the most likely door to be hers (because there were a few little shacks adjacent to the hostel, within the gate) and calling her name until she appeared. Once we managed to get out we first went to the animal market which was needless to say, an experience! the first section of this big field they used had all kinds of small animals dogs, cats, ducklings, chicks, chickens, turkeys, guinnea pigs, you name it, it was probably there. Next came the the smaller live stock animals- pis and goats- all on leashes, and then the cows and a few horses. It was very loud and smelly! I think the pigs were the loudest! It was crazy to imagine people bringing animals every week because we didn't see many people buying animals, just trying to sell them- although supply and demand dont necessarily rule business here.

After we had enough of the animal market we headed down to the famous craft market which had by 8ish taken over the city- literally all the streets were covered with vendors. It is incredible how people bring in all their goods to sell. They bring them in on their backs in huge burlap sacks and not just the goods but also the frames and walls for the stands. Its pretty crazy to see a man my size or more likely smaller carry somethign at least 6 times his width and who knows weight wise at almost a right angle!

So we spent a few hours in the market barginning. Then after we had exhausted ourselves and our wallets we grabbed a bus back to Quito. When we got off the bus though we couldn't find Sagiv- he hadn't gotten off the bus. We were standing there looking confused and white and a few people kept trying to point out the other 2 white people who had been on our bus- and the funny thing was they were sure thats who we were looking for- it had to be we were white! After about 15 minutes Sagiv reappear he had stayed on the bus because someone had taken one of his bags of souvenirs and he had stayed on to look for it more- unfortunately to no avail :(

Then we headed back to the hostel we had stayed in before and got our old room back:) That night after dinner we watched the parade to celebrate the Independence of Quito, which was crazy! It must have been about 3 hours long. The parade had high school and military bands, many of whom were accompanied by cheerleaders and/or baton twirls. There were also randomly people dressed in crazy costumes on stilts with their faces painted who yelled "Viva Quito," to which the crowd responded "Viva!" There were also beauty queens riding on floats that we still can't figure out- they were huge paper mache people- maybe local figures. The last hour was mostly other town delegations congratulating Quito- they wore traditional outfits and did local dances- they were definitely our favorites. Their stamina was incredible, some of the dances involved almost constant jumping and there were old, old people doing them! Amazing!