Saquisili,Cotopaxi, Otavalo

The last few days have been taken up with lots of marketing. And I mean lots. Take a look at our most recent photo upload, and you´ll see where we´ve been. Animal markets, stepping around pigs and pig poo. I almost got run over by a giant pig. And I´m in textile overload. Each market has had a big ´tourist´ section where they sell ponchos, wall hangings, stripey sweaters, carved gourds, etc. It´s all beautiful stuff, but we´ve been feeling too overwhelmed by the vendors and the sheer amount of stuff to really buy anything. Douglas got a dark grey alpaca sweater with little llamas around the cuffs. And I got a big sheepswool poncho that´s pretty much like a blanket with a hood. All the indigenous men wear ponchos here with much panache. I´m not quite sure how they don´t get themselves all tangled up like I do. Well, i´m working on it.

We also spent a night at Cotopaxi, a volcano just south of Quito. It´s the rainy season, so we had the park to ourselves. Alpine meadows full of oddly familiar plants (purple lupine, heather, and indian paintbrush). We never actually saw the top of Cotopaxi, because it was covered in clouds the whole time. Actually, *we* were covered in clouds most of the time. It´s amazing how often we´ve been at cloud level on this trip. Ecuador really is heaven...