Otavalo is a city of about 50,000 that has figured out how to balance its indigenous identities and being economically prosperous. On one side is the volcano Imbabura. About 15 km away is the town of Cotacachi with its eponymous volcano. Cotacachi is the woman, and Imbabura is the man. They split up a while ago and it broke Imbabura’s heart, which is now sitting on his side.
Otavalo is the home of the largest market in Ecuador. There will be another post covering that. We also arrived at the beginning of Carnival, which takes place the weekend before and up to Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. There was a parade. The major way this time is celebrated seems to be throwing water and spraying foam at each other, particularly, but not exclusively, the kids.
Through our friend Susan on the coast, we were introduced to Linda, at who’s place we stayed. Linda has lived in Ecuador for quite a few years, first on the coast, and now near Otavalo. She is the consummate hostess, ensuring we were never hungry and supplying movies for relaxing in the evening.
Linda introduced us to several other expats living in the area, all of whom were extremely generous with their time and experiences.
Dennis drove us to Cotacachi where we checked out leather street. We found beautiful handmade leather bags, coats, and belts. I got a belt. Ellen walked away from a beautiful red jacket. We also went to take a look at the new house Dennis is building:
View from Dennis’ new house
He took us on several drives, including to the crater lake atop Cotacachi.
On the way up one of the roads, we ran into some recent road construction. Notice the safety markers:
We were also introduced to Elizabeth and Rocky. Their first Ecuadorian place is in Olon near where we stayed. In fact, we had seen it. They since built a place in an indigenous community near Otavalo. They are poster children for how to appropriately integrate with locals. This includes a reciprocal arrangement with the (now) former president of the area communa and his wife to teach each other their respective languages. Look at the height of the corn!
Rocky and Elizabeth with the former president, his spouse, her sister, and the new (younger) president.
We were struck by how well a very diverse group of people had formed a real community.
WOW! How beautiful your pictures are of your travels! I am having such fun (and no small amount of envy) reading your posts and seeing your photos. I recommend staying if the creeps on the right eke out a victory. My regards to you both.
imagination is silly! Until I could get a larger pix of road construction, I thought I was looking at the sprawled carcass of a large dead animal! And the corn is higher than an elephant’s eye!!
I continue to marvel at how much more prosperous Ecuador looks compared to our time there in 1984. I don’t think it’s just your wonderful photography!