Otavalo is about 2.5 hours north of Quito by bus, and is known for its market. The biggest day for the market is Saturdays, but I was told by another woman I met in Mindo, that Saturdays in Otavalo are mayhem, hordes of tourists are delivered there by the bus loads and there are markets there on any other day too. So Monday morning Sian and I headed off to Otavalo. We arrived, and ... the streets were deserted. It was barely 5pm and no one was around. The guy at the hostel said everyone was off partying because there was a celebration “Fiesta del Yamor” but even after we walked the streets we didn’t find any action.
We read in Lonely Planet about a restaurant called Yolanda’s del Yamor, only open for a few weeks a year, around the time of the festival. We figured that all the locals must be there, hiding from us, and thoroughly enjoying themselves so we decided to check it out the next day. Of course, the next day, after having walked for several hours through the countryside to a bird farm and a healing tree, by time we got to Yolanda’s place at 7:40pm, it was already closed!! At least the streets weren’t quite as deserted as the day before, but still pretty empty.
The next day we got a lift to Lake Cuicocha, and crater lake, that you can walk around. At the point we got dropped off it was so incredibly windy we could stand at an angle to the ground. Thankfully it was blowing away from the water otherwise we may have gone tumbling down a cliff face. The scenery was picture perfect. The path wasn’t too hard, although it did disappear a couple of times, and tried to trick us by having two signs saying ‘This way’ but pointing down two separate directions.
When we got back, we finally made it to Yolanda’s. It wasn’t really a partying kind of place, but it was definitely filled with locals all eating platos tipicos and chicha del yamor, a chicha made from 7 varieties of corn. We ordered two glasses and we delivered a jug of at least half a litre of chicha. This was possibly the sweetest chicha I’ve tried yet, but non-alcoholic. Maybe that explained the lack of partying.I’d saved most of my souvenir shopping for Otavalo so over the 4 days, I bought more and more stuff, ignoring any excess baggage or customs implications.
Every morning I’d wake up so early and I go and walk through town watching the locals set up their stalls. The size of the bags some of these people were carrying was amazing. It seems like so much effort to put up and take down all the stalls, from scratch, every morning and afternoon. I tried to take photos of the woman in their traditional dresses but most of them were shy and would either conveniently turn away or just straight out say ‘no’ when I asked.
Otavalo is about 2.5 hours north of Quito by bus, and is known for its market. The biggest day for the market is Saturdays, but I was told by another woman I met in Mindo, that Saturdays in Otavalo are mayhem, hordes of tourists are delivered there by the bus loads and there are markets there on any other day too. So Monday morning Sian and I headed off to Otavalo. We arrived, and ... the streets were deserted. It was barely 5pm and no one was around. The guy at the hostel said everyone was off partying because there was a celebration “Fiesta del Yamor” but even after we walked the streets we didn’t find any action.
We read in Lonely Planet about a restaurant called Yolanda’s del Yamor, only open for a few weeks a year, around the time of the festival. We figured that all the locals must be there, hiding from us, and thoroughly enjoying themselves so we decided to check it out the next day. Of course, the next day, after having walked for several hours through the countryside to a bird farm and a healing tree, by time we got to Yolanda’s place at 7:40pm, it was already closed!! At least the streets weren’t quite as deserted as the day before, but still pretty empty.
The next day we got a lift to Lake Cuicocha, and crater lake, that you can walk around. At the point we got dropped off it was so incredibly windy we could stand at an angle to the ground. Thankfully it was blowing away from the water otherwise we may have gone tumbling down a cliff face. The scenery was picture perfect. The path wasn’t too hard, although it did disappear a couple of times, and tried to trick us by having two signs saying ‘This way’ but pointing down two separate directions. 
When we got back, we finally made it to Yolanda’s. It wasn’t really a partying kind of place, but it was definitely filled with locals all eating platos tipicos and chicha del yamor, a chicha made from 7 varieties of corn. We ordered two glasses and we delivered a jug of at least half a litre of chicha. This was possibly the sweetest chicha I’ve tried yet, but non-alcoholic. Maybe that explained the lack of partying.I’d saved most of my souvenir shopping for Otavalo so over the 4 days, I bought more and more stuff, ignoring any excess baggage or customs implications. 
Every morning I’d wake up so early and I go and walk through town watching the locals set up their stalls. The size of the bags some of these people were carrying was amazing. It seems like so much effort to put up and take down all the stalls, from scratch, every morning and afternoon. I tried to take photos of the woman in their traditional dresses but most of them were shy and would either conveniently turn away or just straight out say ‘no’ when I asked.
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