Feeling Tall in Ecuador...
We are back in Quito after a trip to Otavalo to meet our artisans! What an amazing visit that provided us lots of additional information as well as some heart- warming stories. It was amazing to see them making the jewelry we sell- as well as to interact with them. I'm always proud of Threads Worldwide...but even more so after this visit. Read about our visit here: http://threadsworldwide.com/ecuador-partners/
Otavalo is about 2 hours away from Quito. We arrived at the bus stop- clearly sticking out like sore thumbs....because people immediately started directing us around- waving us here and there to get us on the right bus. My favorite part is when the correct bus arrives and 7 Ecuadorians smile and point to make sure we understand it is our bus! Thank goodness for the rest of the world understanding our language barrier! Transportation here is extremely cheap- most buses around the city are $0.25 and to Otavalo was about $2.00. Apparently the gas is subsidized by the government keeping cost down.
Otavalo is a quiet city set between three mountains. I was FREEZING in the evening- and couldn't seem to get warm. It may have been a good idea to look more clearly at the weather before we left. My one pair of jeans are not cutting it. We spent some time walking around the city where for the FIRST time in my life at 5'4...I can look over the heads of almost everyone on the street! No joke there are these sweet Ecuadorian women who are at their highest 4 feet to 4'1. I'm like an NBA basketball player here.
Our Spanglish has failed us several times on the trip including walking into a restaurant and Ang asking for "2 menus" and we ended up with "2 set-menu-6-course lunches"....awesome. We also went on a 45 minute walk today to get to a bus that was 15 minutes away. I always regret taking French in high school on these trips.
Today we went to the Center of the World! Where latitude and longitude meet at 00/00/00. There were some really cool 'tricks' at the Center of the World- including that you could balance an egg on a nail and a demonstration on water draining different ways on the North and South side of the equator. Lucky for you guys Ang was taking video of all of this....so, you can all watch when you get home!
Today we got up extra early to take a bus to Mindo- and successfully missed the bus- so we will be taking a later bus today. The largest problem was that we needed an ATM- and received several different sets of instructions of where to find one....running us all over the city....eventually leading to us missing out bus. Ugh. We can't complain much...it is just part of traveling!
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