Hola!

I got up early today because I wanted to catch the Animal Market, which starts at 5am. Over breakfast I met a bloke from Switzerland called Castan? I think. I'd actually seen in Quito a few days ago in one of the museums but didn't talk to him. He seemed to know exactly what was going on so we arranged to spend the day together visiting the markets. The Animal Market had pretty much finished by the time we got there but there were still some cows and pigs to be sold. The people were all dressed in traditional Quechuan clothes and the children were so cute. I talked to them for a while before taking some pictures of the view from the top of the market.

Then we wandered around the main market, which was divided into the food market, clothes and handicrafts. The food market was realy fun, lots of spices, miscellaneous vegetables and dead things carved up or just dumped whole onto a bbq. It's not very aggressive here, you're expected to haggle but if you say you're not interested they leave you alone.

After lunch we took a cab up to the Peguche Cascada, a waterfall in a nearby village. There were loads of other people there and it started to rain so we walked back into the village. The village is supposed to be a traditional weaving village but I'd say ghost town is a better way to describe it.

By this time Castan had to leave so I went to see if I could book a tour to hike around Cuicocha Lake or the Mojanda Lakes, but none of the tours had enough people to run so I ended up booking onto a tour around several sites including the Cuicocha Lake.

Later on I went to the little restaurant and started talking to an American girl so we had dinner together and went for a walk around the town. She is studying in Quito and living with a host family, her Spanish was really good but her accent really annoyed me. She talked non-stop and kept saying 'that's amay-zing' ahhhh! She was getting the bus back to Quito so I said I'd meet up for lunch with her the next day and get the bus back with her.

The next day I got picked p for the tour. There were tow others on the tour Lisa and Richard from Ohio, tow stereotypically fat annoying middle aged Americans that are now living in Guayaquil teaching English. The woman was suffering from Altitude sickness so didn't really manage to sift her massive arse out of the mini-bus very much except to get lunch in the last town, not impressed!

We started out at San Pablo Lake, which is surrounded by 31 Indian villages. The people use the water from the lake to wash clothes, bath and as drinking water. Every year there's a massive competition to see who can swim across it the fastest. The next stop was the Peguche Cascada (again). The water from the San Pablo lake ends up in the waterfalls, which are set in a eucalyptus grove with loads of lemon balm etc. The waterfall is a sacred place where elaborate cleansing ceremonies take place every new year or something.

Then we went to Carabuela, a small village where we saw how they process llama wool. This tiny Quechuan bloke and his wife Mariashowed us the whole process, it takes him 3 months to make one poncho, but they are 'amay-zing'.

The next stop was the Cuicocha Lake (Guinea Pig in Quechuan). The lake is within a volcanic crater and has two small islands which formed when the crater collapsed. Apparently the island were used by the Inca¡'s as a prison. There is also a yearly competition where competetors swim all the way round the lake. I would have liked to hike around the top of the crater (it takes 4-5 hours) but I couldn´t find a guide, it's apparently unsafe to go alone as there have been several muggings in recent years.

The last stop was a Cotacachi, another village/town that is famous for leather. It basically consists of a whole street with shops selling every imaginable leather product. This is where the Americans decided they had to eat, which was really fun to watch?!

Finally I returned to the hostel where I met up with Simone and we headed back to Quito. She literally did not shut up the whole way home I was so tired! When I got back to Quito I realised I was supposed to meet up with the Northern Irish guy the next day so I went to see if I could find him. I ended up eating Chinese food with hime and a couple of others from his tour. Alan had just got back from climbing Cotapaxi and had the reddest face I have ever seen. We arranged to meet up the next day.