Quite a few of us met up at either the school or Plaza Foch, including the two Swiss girls at my house to visit Otavalo market today - it took two buses and about two-and-half hours. It´s one of the "must-dos" in the guidebook. We could have gone with the Spanish school, but decided it would be cheaper to do it ourselves, even though the Spanish school excursion included stopping over at one or two other locations.

We caught a local bus to the North Terminal - we basically had to hail down every bus and ask if they were going there. It's not always (?!) obvious where they go to, although I had seen another bus which did have it as a destination on the windscreen. Eventually, an old guy at the corner of the street told us that he was going to Otavalo so we basically followed him onto the next bus (and off the bus too at the other end - in fact, he was nice enough to lead us to what he said was the best ticket booth to get our tickets to Otavalo ($2) but then for some reason we then had to pay a further $0.25 to go through the turnstile to get onto the bus (assigned seats). We were lucky enough to get a seat, others had to stand in the aisle.

We arrived at Otavalo after about 2 hours' travel and then had to make our way to the Plaza Central which is the main artesano place - but we did have to ask our way a few times as there were some smaller stalls, but we eventually found the larger part of it. It's really colourful and we had to strip off quite a few of our layers as it had brightened up considerably.

The Plaza Central was full of vendors´stalls selling handicrafts: gorgeously embroidered handbags and duffle-type bags; purses, wooden ornaments, carved ornaments and artwork such as representations by the Ecuadorian artist Guyasamin.

I was also extremely interested in finding coca leaf packets on offer as well as coca mints. I tried chewing a small piece of coca leaf (bought by someone in our group) but apart from tasting bitter, I didn´t feel any effects. Others, though, who tried the coca mints said they got some numbness; Anya, who had a cold, said it numbed her throat and felt better than her Strepsils!

Throughout the market, there were a number of indigena women, in their white embroidered blouses (flared sleeves), many of whom were wearing many strings of gold-coloured beads and black skirts. I didn´t see as many of the traditional fabric hats as in Saquisili, so maybe it´s as well that I got mine there than hoping to get it here. However, I was only looking to buy the essentials here - I will definitely be coming back for souvenir shopping later. It´s pretty big - my guide book says that people from over 70 towns congregate here.

We wandered around and found a pie shop recommended by one guide book, so of course, we sampled their pies, with three of us having their de mora (blackberry) pie with ice cream for $3 - totally yummy homemade pie!

As for me, I ended up supplementing my wardrobe with another alpaca fringed and hooded sweater, a pair of black trousers and a few postcards. However, there are some very nice alpaca and embroidered scarfs and pashminas, as well as silver jewellery here, too.

As Anya and I still had some chores and tasks to do, we left in time to get the bus back to Quito, taking a taxi to the terminal and just managed to get the next bus back. The bus was crowded so we couldn´t sit together and I ended up near the front next to a guy who, after finishing his snack, tried to make pleasant conversation with me. I´m pleased to say that I managed a (stilted) conversation with him, where I got asked if I was Japanese (no, Inglesa), tourist, married and catholic (no, he really was just being sociable!). It´s another one of those occasions where pronunciation and spelling counts (casada means married woman, casada means tired, feminine; similarly, tengo hambre is very different from tengo hombre, where one means "I have hunger" and the other needs no further explanation, I´m sure!). Then he gave me his three recommendations on places to visit: Baños, Cotapaxi (one of the world´s highest active volcanoes), and some other place, I didn´t quite catch and then started to tell me about what fruits were found at the coast. He (Luis) left somewhere before we reached Quito.

Once we reached Quito´s North Terminal bus station, we managed to find our way back to the Mariscal area (took two buses, after some confusion) where we bumped into some others who had had to leave even earlier and I managed to buy my mosquito net, which I decided I did, indeed, need. The guy in the shop (a different one) asked for $14, $1 less than the other guy in the same shop the previous day! Perhaps he was intimidated by the fact that there were three of us in the shop, rather than just me, or he just wanted a sale at the end of the day.

It had started to rain by this time, so we got a taxi to the Supermaxi (el supermercado) and got further supplies. We made plans to meet up after dinner as Fiona had been told/heard that La Ronda in the old town was good for live music in the evening.

It was really busy at La Ronda, which was closed to traffic, with every man, his wife and kid there. It was a real family occasion, with lots of balloons in evidence, and people drinking canalezo from polystyrene cups. We bought one ($1) but it wasn´t really hot, just tepid, and also tried the empañada, which was a deep-fried pancake with some stodgy, mildly spiced filling. It was really buzzing with lots of street entertainers and live music blaring out of every doorway.

We saw a street performer dancing in her bare feet, with lots of twirling and billowing of her dress (held in her hands) and just wandered around before going for a drink in one bar. Upstairs, they had a live band, a quartet dressed in fringed and slightly spangly ponchos. I thoughtthey needed the matching sombrero, but it was quite fun, with one guy playing some ukulele-type guitar (which was strummed pretty quickly sometimes!), and the fourth guy playing drums/pan pipes or a recorder-type pipe, which was shrillerand yet more melodic than the recorder.

We had another canalezo whilst we listened to them playing and singing - it was really quite nice, I especially liked the "recorder" and pan pipes. It was also really quite amusing to hear Spanish words being sung to the Happy Birthday music being played at a man and his family and friends. They seemed to say a lot more than just "Happy Birthday" it seemed to me!

Then, it was dodging the rain whilst we ran to get a taxi back home, ready for an early start for Cotapaxi, the following day.