A Really Big Market

To get out of Quito for a day, we chose to immerse ourselves in something unlike what we’ve seen before. Otavalo Market is renowned within Ecuador as the largest outdoor market in South America. Every Saturday, primarily indigenous people (although Ecuador seems to be a somewhat mixed society regarding ethnic origin) gather to sell their food, wares, and their animals to what are now a mixture of tourists and local people. The original market must have been quite a sight when it sold only to locals. The market is huge in that it occupies a very large town square where the stalls are fitted tightly, many repeating the things that they sell. The market even extends up the streets that are beside the square indicating the vastness of this mercantile exchange. There is even a semblance of a food court which is really a raft of small tents set up just for this day of the week.

The market doesn’t stop at the town center, it extends up onto a bare patch of grass next to the highway where people bring with all the animals they wish to vend for the week. You’ll see people buying bunny rabbits and kittens and guinea pigs. They were giant hogs, cows, chickens and ducks…….anything animal. At the small food vendors at this market, they produce a stew that is boiled for hours that contains cow stomach and all sorts of other lively parts. The local children are shifting away from some of the foods and the way of dress that make up this indigenous culture but they are still alive and visible to us as onlookers.

We found a few special items at the market to bring home and we didn’t haggle too much with the vendors – things here are still very cheap and they deserve a good living too. In fact, they are kind of fun to haggle with as it always ended in smiles for both of us. Some places I’ve been you both feel like you’ve beat each other up and I don’t really like that.

One of the things that interested me, which none will be surprised to hear, is the geology. Fascinatingly, the majority of this area of Ecuador is built on top of volcanic debris that is mostly still unlithified (not yet turned into rock) and as such, the roads are leveled into the terrain by creating huge road cuts that make for a spectacle of depositional wonderment.

 

 

We stopped for cookies and tea.

 

Brooke’s first Alpaca sighting.

 

 

 

 

A beautiful crater lake.

 

 

 

 

 

I think they’re live until you take ‘em.

 

we’re not really sure if they eat them or play with them.

 

I’m pretty sure you don’t eat kittens. Some people just have them!!!!

 

 

In Ecuador, guinea pigs are part of the family traditionally, but they are also food. Like keeping a small cow.

 

Finally…..something we could buy.

 

 

 

This was a giant pig. I mean giant. It was practically the size of a cow.

 

Roast pig anyone????

 

All the widdow chickadeees.

 

 

 

 

 

MMMMM, cow stomach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing like fresh squeezed orange juice.

 

We should have tried some of these.

 

Now there’s a guinea pig you can take home.

 

BELOW: you just have to love rocks.