Otavalo

On Friday after clinic, I had to come home and pack so we could leave for Otavalo that night. It is a small town about 2 hours north of Quito. It is known for the artisan market and is one of the largest in the world. That means one of my favorite things: SHOPPING. The streets are lined with vendors every day of the week but the biggest day is Saturday. Note: the reason it takes two hours to get there is because the bus stops every 50 feet for more people to get on. In the US, it would only be about an hour away. Anyway, after about a half hour on the bus a man gets on WITH A LIVE CHICKEN!!! All I could think of was Spring Break and Mexicana...gobble, gobble, gobble (only Cody, Maggie, and Nick will understand this :) Katie and I began to doze off and suddenly it started clucking like 2 seats behind us! I looked at Katie and said, "I swear if that chicken clucks one more time it´s going to be pollo (cooked chicken...aka DEAD).¨Luckily, for the chicken, it simmered down. Arriving in Otavalo we went to find our hostal but unfortunately the guy did not have our reservation. Although upset, we walked about a half a block down and found a better hostal that had rooms for all six of us, Katie, Jay, Julia, Andy, Alisa and I. The hostal looked like a log cabin and had hammocks in the courtyard. We found a good, at the time, place to eat and then went back to our other friends hostal to sit around the fire and enjoy a few cold ones. We met two ladies from Germany who were both school teachers and were spending 17 days in Ecuador for vacation. They were like me and only brought one pair of jeans because they assumed it would be warmer here. So one of them was trying to dry her jeans in front of the fire. Daniel serenaded us with the guitar and we just enjoyed each other company. That was the end of the ¨good¨in Otavalo. I woke up around 6 AM Saturday not feeling well at all and well, I won´t scare any of you but I was pretty sick all day Saturday. But I wanted to shop!! So I made myself get out of bed around noon and walk around the market for a few hours, just long enough to spend over $60 or so on hand made items. Definitely worth it. We came back to Quito Saturday night and went out for sushi which I probably should not have done since I was not feeling the greatest. Yep my body was not ready for it because I woke up sick again Sunday morning. I contemplated taking my anitbiotic I brought with me for traveler´s sickness but thankfully by late Sunday morning, my sickness had subsided and I felt 100 percent better!! I hate getting sick away from home and hopefully that was a one time deal and I am good to go for the next two weeks!! Otavalo was amazing and I´m bummed I did not get to see as much of it as I would have liked too. I´ll make Sunday it´s own entry :)