Leslie's Birthday in Otavalo

I've decided that with this post I want the pictures to tell the story. So I'll start by saying that we decided to visit Otavalo for Leslie's birthday because we had heard that we could get a good dose of indigenous Ecuadorian culture, history and heritage there, because they have the country's biggest artisan market and because of the inn we could stay at that has cabins instead of hotel rooms. We flew between Cuenca and Quito and took the Panamerican Highway between Quito and Otavalo. A couple typical Leslie and Slocomb things happened en route, of which I don't have pictures. The first is that I got sick on the flight home from Quito (I'm better now though) because I am afraid of heights and I refused not to look out of the window the entire flight because I am trying to break myself of my fear. The second is that on the bus ride back from Otavalo to Quito Leslie decided to sleep instead of take in the beautiful mountainous countryside.




This is a picture of me and the cabin chain we stayed in. We were they only people in the building, which was nice both for the privacy and for stealing the other room's firewood for our chimney.




I decided it'd be worth it for Leslie's birthday to spring for the cabin that came with wine and flowers and a good view of the mountains. The view didn't end up being anything special, but the rest was spot on.




WARNING: Llamas are not generally this nice. You'll see that this one is tied to a tree (at our hotel), and it took a lot of effort and patience from me to get the llama to be willing to walk up to me. Llamas can be aggressive and I've heard that they also spit like camels.




But nothing can change the fact that this baby llama is adorable.




Here are a couple pictures of the Otavalo market on a Sunday afternoon. Saturday is the big market day, but we didn't end up eating in any 2nd-floor restaurants on Saturday so we only have pictures from Sunday.




On Saturdays, the market also branches out into all the streets that intersect with it for at least a couple blocks.




We bought enough stuff from this lady that she offered to be in a photo with her little setup in the middle of the market.




One evening we decided to "dar la vuelta" around downtown Otavalo. This is a picture of the city cathedral and the statue of Rumiñawi, considered the strongest Inca ever to rule over this region of South America. Remember the face, it shows up again later in the post.




On Sunday, after our second round of shopping (going back for everything we decided we still needed), we went to Peguche, a small town outside Otavalo know for it's indigenous Andean music. The best place to go for the instruments is this "taller." Unfortunately, Leslie and I can't remember the name of it (because it's in Quichua, the Inca language) and it's not the one you can find online. This lady gave us a tour of the "taller" (pronounced "tah-yér") and a sample of what all of the instruments sound like.




After learning about traditional Andean music, we headed over to the Peguche waterfall. You can barely see them, but there are two men at the top of the waterfall playing different styles of Andean reed flutes. There should be water where they're standing; I think they're playing to bring us out of the drought.




There are over eight people in this picture. You just can't see the rest of them because I had to frame the photo in a way that they'd all be behind Leslie.




This is the Cuycocha Lake, a volcanic laguna created when a snow-topped volcano imploded several thousand years ago before South America was inhabited by humans. The laguna is the result of all the snow falling into the resulting crater and being continually through the ages by the still active volcano below the water. The laguna is consistently ten to fifteen degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer than the outlying areas because of the heat produced by the volcano. Cuycocha means "Laguna of the Guinea Pigs" in Quichua, and there are several legends as to how this laguna received that name. Originally it was the Laguna of the Gods (don't remember the Quichua word from our boat tour), because all the peoples who lived here before the Spaniards believed it to be a holy place where people could communicate directly with the gods and make the most holy sacrifices.




Does this face look familiar? It's Rumiñawi. Legend has it that when the Spaniards attacked the Incas in order to conquer and enslave them and take all their gold back to Spain, Rumiñawi lead all of his people to Cuycocha to bury all their gold beneath the laguna, inside the volcano, so that the Spaniards could never steal it away from it's proper home in the Andes. He then lead them through life in the moutains, in places they could live without being disturbed (or conquered) by the Spaniards. After his death, the Incas following him came back to Cuycocha and carved Rumiñawi's face into a rock in the laguna to let him live among the gods. Apparently, the Incas used to joke about Rumiñawi that he had a gigantic nose. So this carving is exaggerated on purpose.
History books will tell you that Atahualpa was the leader of the Incas when the Spaniards arrived to South America. Almost all books aren't completely correct because the Inca Empire was split into factions at the time and the Spaniards only every interacted with those who still followed Atahualpa. The Incas who followed Rumiñawi at that time were lead deeper into the mountains to places like Cuycocha to continue their lifestyle without European interruption.




A cute photo of Leslie and me on our boat tour of Cuycocha.

Later I will also have a picture of everything we bought and give you a ballpark figure on how much we spent, thanks to my brilliant haggling skills :-P Right now, there are too many Christmas gifts in the pictures so it cannot be posted until January.