A weekend in Otavalo

SATURDAY - We all woke up bright and early and met down at Quicentro, a major mall in the area. 27 zombie-like K students greeted each other and piled onto the private bus. It was about a 2 hour drive from Quito to Otavalo. Along the way we stopped at a beautiful rest stop that had a fantastic view of a great mountain and a distant lake. There were also llamas and cows there. There were two native girls that we picked up at the rest stop and they sang for us in Quichua for the remaining 10 to 20 minutes of the trip. We also picked up our guide, Cesar along the way.

Once in the Otavalo area, the first place we stopped was a live animal market. There were turkeys, ducks, chickens being held upside-down by their legs, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, regular pigs, and cows. It was really interesting to be walking around this place knowing that most of these animals would be sold and killed for food. Some people took that fact better than others.

Next we went to a market that sold pants, shirts, knick-knacks, art, musical instruments, souvenirs, hats, and tons of other things. It was located in a central plaza in Otavalo and through many streets coming out of the plaza. Every seller had a tent with all of there things crammed in there on carts and tables. It wasn't uncommon to see many different tents throughout selling the same things. One of the most fun things about this place is that we're expected to barter with the sellers. We regrouped and showed off everything we'd gotten. A popular item were these really zany pants made out of light material. All had vertical stripes of varying fun colors.

Cesar then took us to a place that was run by his family. Part of the place was kind of like a museum, showing off different aspects of Quichuan life, like spinning alpaca wool, ancient pottery (we got to hold one that I believe was 2000 years old), musical instruments, a stone corn grinder, which is something that women have to master before getting married, and others. We also ate lunch at this place. The food was yummy, it was chicken, some other meat, some veggies, and some oregano tea. In the back was a garden full of beautiful flowers. I took a bunch of pictures there. There was also a hut with some guinea pig pens in it.

We hopped back on the bus and headed towards Parque Condor, a sanctuary for raptors. I was excited not only to see the Andean Condor, the official bird of Ecuador with a wingspan of about 10 feet, but also the Harpy Eagle, which is apparently capable of eating small children. There was an amphitheater on a bit of a cliff, and this is where we were given a demonstration of different birds. The trainers would kind of throw the bird off the cliff. It would disappear for a few seconds and then soar up in the air. One bird was really good at catching food that the trainer threw up in the air. After the demonstration, some smaller birds were brought out and we were allowed to hold them and get our pictures taken with them.

We departed from the park and drove only a little way before getting out and climbing up a hill. On top of the hill was a sacred tree that was over 200 years old. The hill had a breath-taking 360 view, and there was quite a bit of interesting history behind it, for example it was a burial ground for babies back in the day. Also people who got caught for doing something bad to the natives would be tied to the tree naked all night long. They would have cold water thrown on them throughout the night and also be beaten. There was a really cool mountain seen from the top of the hill and I took a few pictures of that. Unfortunately its name was in Quichua and I don't remember what it was.

Finally it was time to go to our hotel. The hotel wasn't a big building like you'd find in the States, but rather a compound of buildings in a very rustic setting. There were hammocks outside of many of the rooms. The hotel had its own restaurant, where we ate. We were entertained by some really good music typical of the area. Also several kids danced for us. We had several options for dinner, and I chose the trout. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was served with the head and tail still attached!

By the end of dinner everyone was pretty exhausted, we'd had a pretty big day, but it wasn't over yet. We had an evening activity planned: a demonstration of spiritual cleansing by an authentic shaman. Now, when I first heard about this, what came to mind was us sitting around in a temple of sorts with a man dressed head-to-toe in very shaman-esque clothing. What it turned out to be was us sitting around in a guy's living room. His house wasn't particularly nice, the furniture was uncomfortable and there were flies all around. Our shaman was an older man with a button-down shirt with a design of an eagle combating a snake in a lightning storm. For the ceremony he wore a headdress that wasn't in the best of conditions.

The Ceremony: First the shaman passed around a bowl of strong alcohol for us all to have a sip (“medicine of the ancestors”, as he called it), then the volunteer (one of us) stripped down to their undergarments, and one of the first things the shaman did was spit, no, spray alcohol all over the volunteer's body. It was hard not to laugh. I don't know what we were expecting, but it wasn't this. We pulled ourselves together quickly and watched as the shaman shook two eggs all around the body of the volunteer, then rub burnt bundles of plants all over their body, breathe fire towards their body, and of course spit more alcohol over them. The ceremony had a very unique method of timing how long each phase should last: the time it took to smoke a cigarette. That's right, the shaman would start smoking a cigarette and then do his thing, like rubbing plants all over the person's body and he would only stop when his cigarette went out. Then he'd light up another and start on the next phase. Sometimes he'd blow smoke over the person's body as well. At the end, the person had to drink a concoction that may or may not have been a mixture of the strong alcohol and cologne. To top it off, the person whose spirit has been cleansed was not supposed to shower for three days. As far as I know, they all followed that rule (I think there might have been 6 in total).

It turns out that he usually doesn't do the ceremonies in his living room, but there's a smaller room where he does it for smaller groups. We got to look in and there were a lot of dead things hanging on the walls, including armadillos and animal skins. There was even a jaguar paw hanging on the wall.

Exhausted, stunned, and in some cases spiritually cleansed, we all climbed into the bus for the last time that day and headed back to the hotel, where we enjoyed our sleep very much.



SUDNAY - On Sunday, we woke up earlier than we wanted to (6:30) and went to breakfast at 7. I wore my new zany blue-striped pants that I'd gotten at the market the day before. We moved out of the hotel and went to a fruit market that had tons of people with their carts selling fruits of all types and colors. It was really cool. It wasn't only a fruit market, but a dead animal market (probably where some of those animals we saw the day before end up). There were several butcheries, and outside the doorway of one was a dog sitting patiently for some scraps. Some people had a bag full of dead, plucked chickens. They'd take them out one at a time, chop off the head and the legs at the knees and then put the body in a pile on their cart next to the rest of the dead, plucked, headless, legless chickens. We also saw several pig heads, some with skin and some without skin.

After another bus ride, we found ourselves at a place that looked like a really nice park, except I think people actually lived there. It had a good-sized waterfall and we all took pictures of each other in front of it. Then we climbed up a steep path that went up the side of the waterfall and over the top of it to the other side. We met a sweet black dog. It followed us around everywhere, even up the really steep path. I'm not sure how exactly it did it, but then again it does live there, so it's probably been everywhere.

The next stop was a place where musical instruments are made, a woman showed us how pan pipes are made and then she demonstrated different instruments. I got to try out an instrument that resembled a didgeridoo in front of everyone.

We ate lunch in a town called Cotocachi, a place that is known for its leather. After lunch we watched a parade and walked down a street that had tons of leather shops.

Our last stop before returning to Quito was a great big dormant volcano that had filled up with water and become a lake. We got on a boat and rode around the lake, which had two islands. We were able to see bubbles coming up from the water and in some places it smelled a bit like sulfur. The bubbles were volcanic, coming from way down deep in the Earth. After getting out of the boats, we took a little hike along the rim of the volcano, where we not only got a great view of the lake and islands, but also of the land around the volcano. We were able to see the great big mountain that we'd seen the day before from atop the sacred hill.

Even though my weekend was fantastic, when I got home I was so excited to see my room and my bed again. It had seemed like a long time since I'd been here even though it was two days.

As always, check out my picasa page for pics!