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Ecuador
We had an uneventful flight to Quito. Since we had cashed in our
frequent flyer miles to get first class tickets, the flights were fairly
enjoyable. The enjoyment ended upon our arrival. We watched the
luggage carousel empty without seeing our bags. We made our way to the
Delta baggage window, which was staffed by a single employee, trying to serve
(slowly) about 25 people on our flight who were in our same situation. We
eventually got our forms filled out and headed to our hotel. By then it
was almost midnight, and we crashed for the night.
The next morning we met our friends Budd and Dawn in the hotel dining room for
breakfast. We new it would be awhile before our luggage arrived, as there
are not too many flights a day from the US. Our big problem was that we
couldn’t get any information. The Delta phone number we were given was
busy all day. We finally received some help from the hotel receptionist.
She has a friend who works at the airport and he learned that our luggage was to
come in on the next American flight from Miami, after 6 pm. With nothing
else to do about or luggage, we decided to do some sightseeing around the city.
Our hotel, the Real Audiencia, is located in the historic district, sometimes
called the old town. It is more interesting than the newer parts of the
city with parks and plazas, and colonial architecture.
I didn’t think there is anything particularly spectacular about Quito, although
there are numerous parks and churches. The Presidential Palace was just a
short walk from our hotel, so we decided to visit. We had a very nice tour
of the public areas, after the usual metal detectors. They had an
interesting display of official gifts from other governments. They ranged
from pieces of china to elaborate clocks to a diamond encrusted gold sword, a
replica of the sword of Simon Bolivar, which was a gift from Hugo Chavez.
The original sword is in Venezuela and the gift is an exact copy. We
looked for an IPod from the USA but there was nothing on display from our
government. Possibly an opportunity to improve relations here.
After visiting a church or two, we decided to ride the Teleférico, a gondola up
to the top of a neighboring mountain.
Quito is at something over 9,000 feet and the gondola takes you up another 3,000
feet in a 15 minute ride. The views going up and at the top are pretty
spectacular. You can get a better idea of just how large the city is,
nestled in valleys between the mountains.
It was shirt sleeve weather in Quito but cold and windy at the top.
Fortunately Budd had a spare jacket I could wear, as did Dawn for Pam. The
ride was pretty much deserted as the tourist season doesn’t start for another
month or so. There is a children’s amusement park at the top but it looked
deserted.
After a half hour or so we returned to the city and Pam and I decided to go to
the airport to see if our luggage had arrived. It hadn’t. The
American Airlines agent told us it might arrive on their 9:30 pm flight.
She also remarked, “We are just doing a favour for Delta. It’s not really
our responsibility.” That boosted our morale!
We were trying to decide whether to have some dinner at the airport and wait for
the next flight. Then we saw the flight was posted as “Delayed” with no
ETA. That decided us. We took a cab back to the hotel and joined
Budd and Dawn for dinner. The next morning our hotel receptionist called
her friend at the airport and learned our bags had arrived late the previous
evening. We grabbed another cab and went out to retrieve them. They
were back in Delta custody, locked in a room with twenty or so other bags that
had come in with ours. We were never contacted by Delta or American to let
us know they had arrived. It took us two trips to the airport and
assistance from our hotel receptionist to finally retrieve our luggage.
Interestingly, our trips to and from the airport by taxi cost $4, $7, $9 and
$10, depending on the state of the traffic. The guidebooks all said the
trip would cost $15 so we didn’t complain. We were just happy to see our
luggage!
That afternoon we took two cabs to the bus terminal and bought our tickets to
Otavalo. Taking two cabs resulted in a minor problem. Our driver
tried to drop us off outside of the terminal at a street side bus stop. He
said we could catch the Otavalo bus there. We told him we needed to buy
tickets in the terminal so he took us quite a ways farther to a parking area
just outside the ticket offices. There was no sign of Budd and Dawn!
Pam guarded our luggage (losing it once was enough!) while I went to search for
Budd. We connected after 15 minutes or so. Of course their taxi had
dropped them off up on the street. We had to negotiate several sets of
stairs to get them and their luggage to the ticket office.
The bus trip takes about two hours for the 60-mile trip at a cost of two
dollars. The first half of the trip is through the suburbs with the
remainder through more sparsely populated areas. Every few minutes someone
would get on the bus, deliver a sales presentation and try to sell some kind of
food. Then they would get off the bus and someone else would get on to
sell something else. We were kept entertained during most of the trip.
Our hotel in Otavalo is the Hostal Doña Esther. It’s a nice little hotel
with 12 rooms. It has its own restaurant with mostly Italian food, and
wood-fired pizza. No complaints there. The first two nights we were
the only guests in the hotel. Friday and Saturday they were pretty busy as
people poured into town for the Saturday market. Our visit also coincided
with a religious observance, a novena, which continues for nine days.
Every morning at about 4:30 they shoot off fireworks – it sounds like cannon
fire. Then, around six or six-thirty the church bells start to ring, and
continue to ring until sunrise.
This Sunday is national Election Day and there were demonstrations, speeches,
music and dancing in the city plazas. The first night we were there
fireworks were included at the end of the political festivities, around
midnight. When the fireworks began at 4:30 we assumed the guys in charge
got drunk and decided to just shoot off the leftovers. I guess that was
not the case.
Thursday we hired a car and driver to take us to see some of the surrounding
pueblos and other tourist sites. We started with a visit to Lago Cuicocha,
a lake in the crater of an old volcano. We hiked a trail up around the
edge of the crater, at an altitude of ten or eleven thousand feet. We were
pretty well acclimated to the altitude by then, but we still stopped to catch
our breath once in a while. Our guide , Luis, pointed out all the plants
and told Pam what they were used for as medicines. Pam translated for the
rest of us. The two islands in the lake have their own ecology, and are
populated by wolves, rabbits and armadillos among other fauna. It is a
mystery how the armadillos got to the island, as they don’t swim very well.
We drove on to the town of Cotacachi, which is known for its leatherwork.
We weren’t able to see any leather goods being created (I guess Luis didn’t know
anyone in town) but the main street was wall-to-wall leather stores. We
just browsed. The city seemed almost empty, and extremely clean. The
tourist season begins next month.
We are interested in textiles, so we next went to Peguche. This town is
known for weaving as well a manufacturing of musical instruments. We
visited a shop to see the musical instruments first.