02 & 3rd Oct - Otavallo and out on town

We got a local bus to Otavallo, a town way outside Quito with one of the largest local markets in Ecuador. The bus journey was eventful, a tyre blew and the bus skidded all over the road, how the bus driver managed to avoid the oncoming cars and keep us on the small windy road, I`ll never know, but he did. After a short delay we were back on the road with new tyre in place and eventually, unscathed made it to Qtavallo.

The market is massive and these days is no more than a tourist market selling all sort of painting, weaving, carvings and of course tat to us stupid tourists.

Thankfully Mairi and I didn`t bring too much money so could only buy a couple of things but really wanted to buy lots of tat.

The bus journey home wasn´t very eventful except we were sitting on a seat beside the driver and a woman and annoying child sat beside us actually on the dashboard. forget seat belts and health and safety.

We had a really nice dinner in one of the trendy cafes and made our way up the road to the Scottish Pub "The Turtles Head" the rough guide said that you know you`ve been to a Scottish Pub by the end of the night! so we had to see what they meant. It was pretty empty except for a few old expats being chatted up by young local girls - I suppose one of them is better than poverty - not much.

It was pretty crap - no Irn Bru or anything - maybe that`s what the giude book writer thinks of Scottish Pubs. To be fair to Scottish Pubs a new owner has taken over and it`s quickly becoming an English or British pub a lot of the Scottish Flags have been painted over - so maybe that explains why it was so bad!

We then went to a really nice trendy place Sutra where Performance Artists were Performing. Well I suppose they must have been performance Artists and their juggling, head stands, swimming movements and hat exchanging some would call performance. Mairi and I sat is quite disbelief drinking our Mora Dakiri`s which more than made up for the art.

Sunday we had a lazy day - hangovers at altitude is not much fun I can tell you. We didn`t have that much to drink but my head thinks we did and somebody then took a hammer to it, worst of all the hostel curtains are really thin and the light streamed threw really early and continued all day - Oh for a dreary rainiy Scottish summer day.