My last official stop in Ecuador Was Otavalo, a small town well known for its market full of Ecuadorian crafts.

The best day to visit Otavalo is on Saturdays since it’s the biggest day for the market, with the most vendors and the more stuff to look at.

Anna and I didn’t know this but the weekend was a 5 day holiday called carnaval where kids buy “Carioca” (foam in a can) or water guns and spray everybody. The worst part of carnaval is that some people throw eggs and colored powder, thankfully we only got foam and water!

Kids sneaking to spray people passing by!

Well, since it was carnaval and people would be traveling to all parts of the country we decided to wake up early and leave by 8am to try to miss some of the holiday traffic. When we arrived at Carcelen station we found an already huge line to Otavalo! 
Men were selling spots in a taxi for $12.50/ person but I heard them go all the way down to $5. Another man had gotten a hold of a lot of tickets and was selling the $2.70 bus ride for $5 to people in line. In mi opinion this is the kind of behavioral that stops a country from going forward because people try to gain profit from others and others don’t care about anybody but themselves. I find it unfair that people in line are being responsible and thoughtful to stay in line for their turn while others take advantage and skip lines or go and buy expensive tickets, that only feeds the bad behavior.

I hate inequality and people taking advantage and I do not stay quiet. When it was our turn to get to the counter to buy our tickets there were people cutting into the line when the policeman wasn’t looking.  Also there were people just walking straight to the window without properly waiting. I went to the police and the security to tell them what was happening and the security said “it is the customers fault for allowing it and I don’t even get paid” it was such an infuriating answer!

To be respected one needs to respect, even if that comes in form of waiting for your turn in a queue.

This guy is selling tickets to people standing in the queue!

Anyway, after an hour wait we got our tickets and headed to Otavalo.

Super cute Hostel room!

The famous plaza de los ponchos was crazy full with vendors and tourists, one could barely walk and it was a tiny bit overwhelming.

The vendors were mostly dressed in the traditional attire of the region and speaking Quichua, their native tongue.

Ponchos for sale!!!

The Otavalo weekend market is probably the biggest craft market I have ever seen! The market is open every day but on saturday is the biggest day of them all; hundreds on vendors gather around and sell you pretty much anything imaginable

All kinds of sweater for those who are chilly!!!


This one was impressive: bracelets and small dream catchers!!!
As I walked I wondered how much do these people actually sell to be able to make a living! They seem to have an excessive amount of items and not many people buying!


 They had all kinds of colourful shawls!


I absolutely adored the traditional dolls. I wanted to get one for my baby niece but unfortunately they weren't child friendly!!! The earring were beads that were only glued, the eyes too, the jewellery would fall easily and couldn't risk to bring a chocking hazard toy.



Instead, I got her a bunch of finger puppets!!!

Luciana and her grandma Lucy!

And they were a total hit!


For those who like earrings it was earring galore!




I learned that there is a specific traditional painting from the area and that they paint things like plates and bowls, all super colourful with pretty fun patterns!





The paintings were absolutely amazing!!!





I could have even gotten a Panama Hat here!


And there were an infinity of bags!!!!

Traditional blouses!!!

Hammock chairs!

I kept seeing these hats so I asked and they said it was Inti Raymi (inti is Quechua for sun), one of the most celebrated Inca gods.

I loved looking at people and taking pictures at the market.
The local ladies looked so cute in their traditional clothes, their hat, skirt, beautiful decorated shirt, sandals, and colourful wrap on their back!

My favourie one was this lady who gave a tourist her "bendicion" (blessing) after he gave her a couple of coins. Giving someone a blessing is very typical of catholic latin american women (and even men!) who do a cross on your forehead to protect you on your journey.





 This guy is selling cereal in bulk!

Orange juice for sale!

How cute is she?

This lady went around the market approaching tourists to sell them some souvenirs.

From there I went to the plaza with the church (because there is ALWAYS a main plaza with a church!) but it wasn’t that exciting.

I kept walking without direction and hit another church and past it I found the local Mercado and stopped to get myself some mangoes!

From there I decided to go up the stairs... because views are always better from up! Up, up, up I went and ended up at a very nice view point overlooking the city.

I kept walking and walking and ended up at the train tracks and walking along them trying to get to the funniest looking church... a colibrí shaped one! So bizarre!

Isn't this funny?

The route next to the tracks was tiny so I kept walking and got to the Gruta del socavón where I saw many people stop by and pray.

The next day we went on an adventure to Laguna cuicocha, a lake at the foot of Cotacachi volcano. We got a bus going to Cotacachi and got dropped off where we could get a taxi up to the lake.

Once at the lake we decided to take the boat trip for $3.50 around the crater lake.

After the short ride we walked up and started the trek around the lake, which usually takes about 5 hours, so we decided just to do a little part of it. Before starting the hike we met Tatiana, an Ecuadorian lady, who joined us on the hike.

We walked for about an hour and Tatiana invited us to go to Cotacachi with her so we did. There really wasn’t much to do in Cotacachi so we just grabbed lunch and headed to Atuntaqui.

The area of Atuntaqui is famous for its textiles and the many Ecuadorian clothes they make in the area and for the long weekend they were having a fair. To be honest I thought it would be more of a traditional textile fair but when we arrived we saw tons of vendors selling all kinds of merchandise: kids clothes, outdoors clothes, sports clothes etc. 

Ice cream stop!

The town was also surrounded by so so so many stores with all clothes made in Ecuador, in a way it was nice to check all the labels and see that they were all locally made. From the fair we headed back to Otavalo for our last night before Anna went back to Romania and I started my way north to colombia.