Otavalo

LAST weekend (21-23 January) we took a group trip to Otavalo, a small-ish town known around the world for its handcrafted goods made by all the locals. This picture is one of the biggest churches in the town, with a block-size plaza in front. One thing that I have noticed is that every city, no matter how large or small, has something exactly like this. The plazas always have fountains in the middle, and apparently it's common for the people to approach the fountain and wash their heads/hair in the water, which was a little strange to see.

This was from the first night, of a different church, lit up by lights. Don't know much more than that, but a cool church nonetheless, even though the photographer was a little "shaky" after the discotech we took over earlier that night. Speaking of the discotech, this was the fateful night I "accidentally" drank two glasses of tap water, which later led to the worst day of my life: that Sunday. I had never felt so terrible, vomited so much, nor had less control of my bowels. I'm telling you, it was TERRIBLE.

A picture of our hotel, which was surprisingly nice. This was and will be the only weekend trip that we are doing with the WHOLE group of 32 students. That made everything a little hectic, but it was fun taking over the whole hotel. The activities for the day of Saturday got absurdly boring, while they were trying to teach us how to "guard" our belongings while in the market, and how to barter like a local. (Hint: if the merchant is offering $32 for something, I refused to pay more than $20. And it always worked!) You kind of start to feel bad for the poor merchants, but if they wouldn't get your sale, they may not be able to sell it again that day. I ended up buying all kinds of ridiculous stuff, including a one-person hammock that is going to be kick ass at the frat.

A nice showing of a few of my new Otavalan purchases, including comfortable pajama-type pants ($5 from $9) and my new sweater ($10 from $17). This is in front of Cuicocaha, which is a huge emploded volcano with a lake in the middle. I'll explain it more in just a second. Anyway, more from the market. Two friends got ripped off by a merchant after purchasing two sweatshirts for $10 each. After completing the purchase, the merchant tracked us down and insisted that they both paid with counterfeit bills. (counterfitting is a HUGE problem here, sales clerks everywhere check the water mark on $5's and $10's even). They didn't pay with counterfeit bills, but we couldn't win the argument, so we took the bills back, bought the sweatshirts with new tens, and are stuck with fake money. But, I was able to offer my friends some advice as a once-checker for Safeway: nobody in the US would look at these bills twice, so just bring them back to the States and they'll be fine!

This is Lake Cuicocaha, which is in the middle of Cuicocaha Volcano. This lake (up to 300 feet deep in places) consists of ONLY rainwater, proving how long the Volcano has been imploded, and how much it rains out in the jungles and RAINforests. There are no fish, or swimming animals of any kind, naturally. We took a small boat, piled all of us in it, and took a breathtaking tour through the lake, around the islands, and through massive amounts of reeds in the middle. It was really cool.

Later that evening, we stopped through a tiny town to visit a Curadero (literally "one who cures," but we just called him a shaman). One girl in our group, Zhang, enthusiastically volunteered to be "cured," which I'm sure she later regretted. It included this: being slapped all over the body with leaves; getting vodka spit into her face, chest, and stomach; fire breathed onto her body; eggs nearly broken over her head; and chewed up flowers (mixed in his mouth with cologne and vodka) spit onto her forehead, chest, and stomach. To top it all off, she was instructed not to shower for 48 hours.

That was all for our trip to Otavalo, and it conveniently happens to be time for class.

Best,

Blair