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.