The city of Otavalo [11], at 2600 meters is 2 hours northeast of Quito and sits near the tranquil lake San Pedro at the base of Imbabura Volcano.  The Saturday handicraft market at the Plaza de los Ponchos, famous for multi coloured woven textiles, traditional musical instruments and other quality hand made products, always draws a crowd.

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The Otavaleños proudly wear their traditional clothes.  The men have their hair long and plaited, wear calf length trousers and a blue poncho.  The women, a white embroidered blouse, lots of gold coloured beads around the neck, a shoulder wrap and an ankle length skirt (anaco) fastened with an intricately woven cloth belt (faja).  Both wear simple sandals (alpargatas) which were once made from hemp.

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Just outside of Otavalo, the Condor Park provides refuge for injured birds of prey.  We enjoyed the flying show they put on there.  Next day we did a pleasant 14 kilometre walk around the volcanic lake Mojanda, about 4,000 meters up.

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