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We'll have to blog about Quito later as we don't want to miss capturing our strange travel day to Otavalo. It was actually really good in the sense that we had to use Spanish a lot, had no idea where we were going or how to get places, and had lots of interesting conversations. We made a list of all the odd occurances at dinner to share:
1. On bus from Quito to Otavalo, this man got on the bus, very well coiffed and very serious and started "preaching" in front of the bus. We assumed he was evangelizing (and were annoyed that he was blocking the lame movie playing) but soon realized that he was indeed preaching - but about soap rather than Jesus. Among other things, this particular magic soap was supposed to melt in your hair. He spent a full 40 minutes on the bus, annoying passengers with his snake oil, but luckily skipped over us gringas (we were the only Westerners on the bus).
2. Bus was also odd as we were pulled out of parking lot to board it even though we hadn't purchased tickets yet - it appears that the bus guy was rather enterprising and preferred to pocket the fares (a whopping $2 each) rather than go through official channels.
3. After the bus left us on highway, by but not in, Otavalo, we tromped through town and were the only gringos (again, it must be low season) and only folks carrying huge mochillas (backpacks). Found our way to bus terminal at other side of town to catch bus to nearby pueblo, Peguche, that had hostel that looked (on the internet) very inviting. Struck up conversation with local Otavalan at bus stop (who wondered why we were waiting 20 minutes for local 25 cent bus rather than taking $3 taxi there - was hard to explain that we were doing it for the adventure of it as well as to save money in Spanish). He spoke Quicha primarily but we both tried in Spanish and I must have slipped into french (as i still do some unfortunately) at which point he switched to French which he knew better than Spanish and we had a great conversation about the festival going on in Peguche that day.
4. The bus finally came, but dropped us off outside of Peguche, and pointed us in opposite direction of hotel. Asked for help and directions from a couple people, and finally this strange looking guy came out, with black grease covering his hands and forearms, and offered to show us personally. At first he seemed odd, but helpful, and was eager to teach us words in Quicha and tell us about his life - he is from Columbia and is a "plastic artist" and painter. Zoe thinks that he was under the influence of something, I think he was just really loco, and we both may be right. After he broke into song on the street, singing about rain in his native tongue, Zoe really began to wonder. But it was when it became clear that we were walking in circles, and passing the same houses, same pig, same signs as before, we both became concerned. And a bit tired as we had carried our packs a fair amount by this point. I could only understand about a quarter of what he said and Zoe was trying to stay as far away from him as possible, so not as much help in interpeting - but i did make out the words labyrinth and confused and then Zoe whispered to me, "Mom he says he doesn't know where he is going!" Through asking others, we finally made it there - in three times the time it should have taken - and I tipped him for helping us anyway (and hopefully to make him go away). Then he insisted on coming into the reception area with us and asked the manager if she had any materials for his art. She took one look at him and said please leave, so he suddenly dove under the desk, grabbed a piece of discarded paper from the floor and ran away with it. Thus went our adventure with the Paper Thief.
5. Hostel turned out to have no one else staying at it and be pretty run down - the guide book mentioned hammocks by a river and there were hammocks but by a dry ditch with trash in it - and the toilet didn't work. And it was in the middle of nowhere and when we looked at the hostel menu, the first item on it was guinea pig, which although a local delicacy, was not what we had in mind. So we checked out, returned to town via taxi, and are now in a perfectly fine hostel for same price with working facilities.
6. Finally we went out to dinner, using recommendations from guide book again, but NO ONE was in any of the restaurants. Not only no gringos, but no locals - we passed dozens of totally empty ones. In the end, we had a decent faux mexican meal at a corner shop where the only ones eating were us and the staff. As we returned to hotel, we finally saw people in one - they all appeared to be local and they had filled up a Chinese restaurant, perhaps they weren't into guinea pig either.
All in all a good lesson that travel adventures are not always pleasant at the moment, but can make for better stories than "we saw yet another beautiful vista" or "saw another amazing version of baroque architecture" and so on.
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