Cayambe

 From Otavalo, we traveled to Cayambe,and stayed in an old hacienda, dating from the 1500's.  Our room was in the wing on the right.

Cayambe is the third highest peak in Ecuador

 We went by 4wd to the snow line, some walked to the glacier, but we were a but confused at the altitiude, and passed on the walk.  We weere up at abour 4600m.

 We also visited the Equator at Cayambe, our group is posing by the sundial.

 On the drive back to Quito, we also passed Cotopaxi, the second highest volcano in Ecuador.   The scenery is stunning

Otavalo

From Cuenca we flew back to Quito, a luxury we all enjoyed rather than many hours in a bus.  We then transferred to Otavalo, a couple of hours north of Quito.

This is a market town, and the main market is on Saturday, and we arrived Friday afternoon.  Otavalo is a tourist town, with western food, chocolate shops and lots of hotels.

It is really hard to get photos of the people, they do not like having their photos taken.  Peter got up early Saturday morning and went to the live animal market.

The locals here are all very short, and mainly dress in traditional clothing.

By 8 am vendors were setting up stalls in the main square, and up and down the streets for several blocks.  On the day we were there, there was so much to buy, and not nearly enough shoppers.

For dinner we had "cuy", the local specialty 

 Yes, it was a guinea pig, but they were in short supply, so we only got a taste.

Otavalo was a really interesting town, didn't do much shopping, because we still had a long way to go.

 

Heading home

The holiday is over for us.  On the second day on the Galapagos islands Pam managed to slip over on some rubble in a lava tube on Floreana island.  A more remote spot would be difficult to find.  She thought she had just sprained her ankle, and managed to limp out, but 2 days later when we arrived at San Cristobal island, an Xray confirmed a break in the small leg bone.  This was set in a back strap cast to support the ankle.  We continued on the cruise, Peter enjoyed the activities while Pam lazed around with her feet up.
After a week, which was fantastic, especially for Peter, we flew back to Quito.

Travel insurance is sending us home.  We will go business class from Santiago to Adelaide.  It is only economy internal flights in South America, as LAN do not offer business class.  We also get a night at the airport hotel in Santiago.  The insurance is all working very smoothly, we had a couple of days delay in getting seats on the Santiago Sydney flight.  We declined to fly via the US, the connections were atrocious.  Better to stay in Quito a couple of extra days.

I will get around to finishing the blog, Ecuador has been amazing.
We should be home late on Oct 14th, if all the connections work.

Going to Galapagos

Having huge problems with internet access at present.  We leave at 4.30 am tomorrow for the Galapagos.  Will update the blog when I get a chance, but don't expect internet for at least a week.  We have a week on a boat, the 4 nights on an island