We arrived in Otavlo around 11pm and got a taxi to a hostel that was perched on a hill 2km out of town. We went straight to bed and were pleasantly surprised once more when we woke up to find an awesome panorama on our doorstep. We had a good breakfast at the hostel before the owner kindly took all of the guests into town to the market.

First stop for Mathilde and I was the animal market. On the short walk there we passed dozens of people. The women were all in brightly coloured clothes and the men were wearing their sunday best with top hat and all. It seemed like everyone we passed either had chickens in their hands, or a bag full of guinea pigs or rabbits or something that was kicking.

The market itself was crazy, there were cattle at the centre of it all but there were also pigs squealing like there was no tomorrow. Chickens literally everywhere, baskets full of guinea pigs or ducks, or geese, or rabbits or just about anything with a pulse.

The animal market wasn{t touristy at all and properly felt like a south american market. Every kid we walked past as well was hugging a baby puppy, but the best part was when people were choosing the guinea pigs and proclaiming how delicious they all looked - it was so surreal.

After the animal market we headed into the handicrafts market which makes the city so famous. The market itself was huge, but just like most markets it was the same thing on sale at almost every stall. The prices were also ridiculously high and you could buy all of the goods at other markets on the continent for literally half the price.

Still it didn´t put us off browsing and it was only hunger that drove us to a stop. This of course meant a visit to the food market. In the food market there were lines of hog roasts and seeing as Mathilde had never tried one before I put up little resistence to sampling one.

Once full we returned to the market to look for more goods, before the hunger set in once more and I returned to the food market for some fresh fish instead. Once i was ready we caught a taxi back to the hostel and then the afternoon bus to the border with Colombia which was 5 hours away.