Cotocachi+Fiestas de Quito+Baños=you might want to take a seat

Alright, pay attention everyone, a blog post of this magnitude is what happens when you neglect to update during times of frenzy...

Last Thursday, the 29th, we left for our last class trip to Otavalo and Cotocachi. Otavalo is one of the top tourist testinations in Ecuador because of its huge artesanal market but Cotocachi is the name of the Cantón (county) and community around Otavalo. Although these communities embraced tourism earlier and now have a larger tourism infrastructure than most Ecuadorian towns, all of the tourism was extraordinarily-well integrated into the normal, daily life.

The first thing we did upon our arrival in Otavalo was to visit Jambi Huasi, a medical clinic that offers both traditional forms of medicine and the more modern, occidental medical practices. We talked with some of the healers, watched Martha, our program director, receive a medical diagnosis involving an egg and about a gallon of oil, and was spiritually cleaned by the "shaman" of the clinic. After that we visited an Andean instrument workshop and an alpaca workshop. Everyone in this community spoke Quichua, usually as a first language, and the incredibly ancient couple who ran the alpaca workshop told us in their best Spanish that they had been working on the same sides of their yarn-making machine for over 50 years...50 years working on the exact same side of the exact same machine, wow.

That afternoon we met our host families for the weekend. I stayed with Anna and Emma since there weren´t enough houses for each of us to stay independently. Our family was fantastic, María (the mother), Carlos (our dad), and Isabel (the 10-year-old daughter) were all very welcoming and tried to include us in the family as much as possible. Our first activity was to help with dinner, where María laughed in a very endearing way at every single thing we did. Cutting the tomatos? Not right. Making juice? Definitely wrong. We had a really fun time talking and learning some Quichua (most of which I´ve forgotten at this point).

The next day we visited la Asamblea de Unidad Cantonal de Cotacachi (Assembly for "County" Unity), a really important citizen-directed body in Cotacachi. We were only there for the opening ceremony, but it was interesting to see so much citizen participation. It was also cool that the entire proceedings were carried out in both Spanish and Quichua, something very rare even in Quichua-heavy areas like Cotacachi. After the assembly we headed to el Lago Cuicocha, a huge lake in the caldera of an ancient volcano. When the volcano exploded thousands of years ago, the mountain collapsed upon itself, created the lake. The volcano then erupted again, giving rise to the two islands in the middle. We took some pictures and took a boat ride around the islands before lunch...definitely the most important part of this day.

Although I´d eaten cuy (guinea pig) prior to this visit, I´d only ever eaten it as left-overs heated up in our microwave, never fresh and it´s it complete form. That all changed the day at Cuicocha when several of us ordered cuy for lunch. Cuy is actually a really good, really unique tasting meat. It was hard to eat because it´s served like chicken, so we had to peal the meat off the little guinea pig legs. Because the brain is traditionally eaten, I tried a little hoping there isn´t a guinea pig strain of mad-cow disease. Unfortunately, the restaurant was out of roasted cockroaches for dessert...

That night we had a dinner and dance/music performance with our families. The next morning we left the family (and Cuchari, the family dog) for the famous Otavalo market. Even after 4 months of Ecuadorian artesanal markets, Otavalo was an impressive/overwhelming experience. I think I managed to finish most of my Christmas shopping but it really was a little too much. When a town of 20,000 hosts the largest market in the country every Saturday, you know you´re in for something big. We shopped until we literally dropped and headed home to rest for fiestas de Quito.

Sorry I´m not doing very well on updating, with one week left here things are getting a little hectic and I just haven´t been able to find the time or interest to keep the blog updated. Right now I´m just too tired to catch up, so I´ll try very hard to bring you up to date with the fiestas de Quito and Baños tomorrow. Ciao!

Coming very, very soon: Fiestas de Quito, the inherent evil of fiestas de Quito, Baños, and the continuied ruination of my shoes