Back from the jungle, on Saturday we took a bus for a couple of hours to the nearby market town of Otavalo. The journey was beautiful, winding and hurtling down a chiselled out road through the mountains - dropping into valleys and then groaning back up the mountains with overtaking on blind bends several times. We were reminded by John and Erica that just taking a bus for the first time in Latin America is quite an experience - a man hollers out of the bus for the first hour touting for passengers, people sprint after it and dive on with babies and bags, people come on the bus selling chicken stew/drinks/ice creams/fruit at every stop, travelling 5 minutes on it while they make their sales and then leap off. So much noise and energy compared to our average bus journey in the UK. Particularly memorable for them was a lady changing her baby's filthy nappy twice on the adjacent seat and then hurling the nappies out of the window, and a very violent film shown on the way back, dubbed in Spanish at full volume.
Otavalo is one of the largest markets in South America. People come from miles around to sell fresh produce, half of which we don't recognise, animals, and beautiful rugs and handicrafts.
It was John's birthday and we rounded off the day with Joan's delicious fruit cake back at the hotel.
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