I took two day trips this weekend, my last in Ecuador. (Already?!) On Saturday, we crammed 9 of us into a land cruiser and went to Otavelo, an indigenous market town. Sure, it's touristy, but it's still authentic. At the market, you're expected to haggle over the prices. You can see the wheels of the seller turning when they see a gringo, wondering how much they can get out of them. I was with Lea most of the morning (I was spelling her name wrong before. My apologies. I know just how annoying that is.), who was afraid to haggle at first, but boy did she get the hang of it. It was her last day in Ecuador, and she had dollars to spend and people to buy for, so she had a lot of practice. I hit up the yarn booth, and didn't even bother haggling when I heard the price: 65 cents a skein. En serio? I'm used to going to the yarn shop and spending more money on yarn than I do on food, so I had a hard time understanding the price she was telling me. If only I had a set project so I could stock up.
After lunch we hiked to a waterfall. (I didn´t jump off this one.) The hike involved some serious rock climbing, which none of us were really prepared for, but we were all game. At one point, a few cows appeared in the middle of the path. (Don´t worry, Amy, I took pictures for you!) A couple local kids helped us get them out of the way. These kids were not cute. They were not very good kids. They threw water on us and tried to move the cows by throwing stuff at them. The cows got mad and starting coming toward us, at which point Laura grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the way. (Gracias!) The kids decided to follow us for awhile, until they got bored and moved on.
On Sunday, we took another day trip to Papallacta, which are hot springs way up in the mountains. It was an absolutely gorgeous day when we left Quito, so I figured I could work on my tan and possibly look a bit less like a gringo (until I open my mouth anyway). The drive up to Papallacta was extremely windy and incredibly bumpy. The higher we went, the closer the clouds got until we were in them completely. So much for my tan. When we arrived, it was pretty darn cold. I wasn´t really in the mood to take my clothes off and put on a bathing suit, but, like Iceland, I knew the hot water would be waiting for me. And it was. The water was really really hot. After a while, we all had to get out, jump in the cold pool, then get back in the hot pool. It was pretty relaxing.
For lunch, we hit up a seriously off the beaten path restaurant that can only be known by locals. Their specialty is trout, which they catch right outside the restaurant, cook it, and serve it up whole, complete with eyeballs. (I was pretty grossed out when Martin patted his on the head and said, "You had a nice life, mate.") I obviously did not eat the fish, but had a porkchop instead. It was by far the most amazing pork chop I´ve ever eaten in my life. I had no idea pork chops could be so good. From what I heard from the others, the trout was equally amazing. (Martin kissed his on the mouth, partly because it was that good, but mostly to get a disgusted reaction out of me. It worked.)
After lunch we took another mini-hike to yet another waterfall. This one, however, was a hot spring, so you could see the hot water bubbling up from the ground, and the steam rising out of the water. Pretty cool.
Victory of the day: Sunday night, I was served soup without potatoes!!!! It was plain old regular noodle soup! Huzzah! (I never thought I would cheer over soup.)
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