La Cuidad de Otavalo...Que Montañas Bonitas!

From inside an internet cafe on Avenida Sucre, the main drag of Otavalo, I keep out of the seasonal afternoon rain that is characeristic of this 3,000+ meter Northern Ecuadorian Andean town.
Today I started my Spanish classes, very necessary for sommunicating with my host family, but all is going well so far. The family is extremely nice and accomodating, and exceptionally forgiving of my poor grammar. I have been spening the past two days walking around town and trying to get acquainted with is as well as with the other volunteers, with whom I´ll be working in an inigenoous primary school up further in the mountains.

Already, though, I an itching nearly uncontrollably to get out and start up some of the mounatisn that loom around me. Imbabura is nearest to Otavalo, but others are close at foot. I hope to make a trip very soon.


This weekend, I´ll be venturing to the coast for swimming and doing some climbing at a crag somewhere in between.

The smells. colors, and sights of this place all seem to be super-vivid and almost overripe, like the strange extotic fruits that seep juice and burst open in the square of the village mercado. "Hill people" in bright reds, blues, and golds ferry their crops and wares here and there everywhere rushing past me, often knocking me into the cobbled street in which taxis fly past narrowly missing me and honking wildly. "Ten Cuidado" I tell myself. But I can´t help becoming intoxicated by the thin air and heavy culture as it seeps in through the whole of me.

Ahhh, the rain is ending. Farewell!