Otavalo is famous for its Saturday market. It is on every traveler's Ecuador itinerary. The local indigenous people are well known for their weaving. I had thought Otavalo was just another souvenir megacenter. Boy, was I wrong!
We got up at 7AM to catch the animal market. I was expecting maybe a few dozens of animals. Instead, there were hundreds of cows, pigs of all sizes, chickens, various pets, and turkeys. Business was brisk too. Money and animals changed hands left and right, just as we looked on.
In fact there were different markets and stalls all over town. It turns out the vendors that cater to tourists were only a fraction. But there were still a lot of them, enough to make John, who usually gets or feigns illness in face of shopping, queasy. But I hardly bought anything. The only thing I do not like about long trips is that I have to be extremely selective so not to overload our family mule.
Some shots from the market.
Cattle Market
Pig market in foreground.
Pigs for sale.
Sold!
One pig for sale.
Inside the pet market.
Locals buying gold-washed glass beads.
Local woman wearing gold-washed glass beads.
Stacked fabric.
Clothes market.
Cruising down the cyclo via (bike lane).
Sun-Ling and John have been traveling the earth since 2008 while blogging, eating vegetarian and vegan, and riding public transportation. We love uphill day hikes, 20th-century architecture, Roman ruins, all bodies of water, local markets, shopping for groceries, aqueducts, miradors, trip planning, blablacar, and more.
Search This Blog
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Most Recent Post
Qatar: Doha
Doha is another bonus visit for us. We picked a long itinerary that gave us 18 hours in Doha, then Qatar Airways canceled the original fligh...
Most Popular Posts of Last 30 Days
-
Chaozhou By John and Sun-Ling Meckley Copyright 2006 In search of warmer weather after a very chilly December in Shanghai, we headed to ...
-
"Are you from Norway?" asked the breakfast buffet hostess at our hotel. "No" I replied. Sun-Ling and I both thought it ...
-
Wuxi, situated just 26 miles from Suzhou, is another ancient city boasting a written history dating back 3000 years. It is also the cradle o...
-
Sapa first got on our radar when we were in Hanoi in 2002. Since then we had traveled much in the area in China , right north of Sapa. I was...
-
John: We left Subotica, Serbia heading north to Hungary on an antiquated self-propelled one-coach train that barely made more than 20kms...
-
From Rimini we rode the train south along the coast of the Adriatic Sea to Barletta. For more than 5 hours we watched the rainy, blustery sa...
-
On our second full day in Aviles, we made a day trip to the fishing village of Cudillero. There must be hundreds of villages like it on the...
No comments:
Post a Comment