Today saw us getting up fairly early to get on a 2 hour bus up to Otavalo, a small town of indigenous Ecuadorians and some sweet markets. The drive was amazing with views of Imbabura volcano.

We then checked into Hotel El Indio and met a local man called Washington who took us around his home town. He was a real character, and within two minutes of meeting him, he told us about his history as a cocaine addict and dealer. He now works at narcotics anonymous and helps other addicts to become clean. His house was one of the most beautiful in all of Otavalo, with amazing wood and decent security - I guess he might need it.

He then took us up to Cascada de Peguche, a beautiful waterfall that is very sacred to the Otavalo people. Each year in June they have a festival to celebrate it which includes a midnight shower in the waterfall and 5 days straight dancing. Now I'm no expert, but I reckon they'd need a bit more than a good feed to charge on for 5 days.

We then headed up to a crater lake 3050m above sea level Laguna de Cuicocha, which was formed after the volcano Cotacachi blew its stack and formed a crater 180m deep for the melted snow to collect. You can still see the water bubbling as it is still active.

Washington then drove us to some leather markets which were expensive and underwhelming, the best part about this town was the extravagant doors connected to run down shacks. It's as if these people spent all of their money on the door and had none left for the house.

We then visited one of Washington's friends, an 80 year old indigenous couple who make their measly income of $260 a month using 200 year old methods to create woollen garments like scarves and mats. I had a go turning the wool into thread able material, and I completely sucked. Maria (75 years old and about 4"10 tall) was laughing and saying something to me in Spanish which I'm pretty sure translates to "you are crap". It was just so cool being in those house that was no more than concrete foundations watching Maria and Hosé create these beautiful pieces all by hand and with no use of electricity or machines. It takes Hosé one week to make a scarf that he would sell at the local markets for about $2US. I will never complain about my job again! I bought two big mats for $8 that I will hang up at home as a reminder of these remarkable people.

Exhausted, we got back to the hostel in time for dinner at an organic hippy type restaurant, I had a beer the size of a bottle of wine (750ml) for $1.80US. Dangerous!