14/9/09

Kalamazoo footed the bill for last weekend to Otavalo. Leaving before the birds woke up on Saturday, we spent the day exploring markets, making friends with birds, and a curadara. Beginning the day with the animal market, where one can buy a cuy, conejo, gato, perro, vaca, cerdo, caballo, gallina, duck, gallino o llama, I was not the happiest camper. I really want to buy all the cuy (guinea pigs) and save them from becoming lunch. It is frustrating to say the least to parade 30 Kalamazoo students through the fruit market with people getting lost, and it is also frustrating to walk through the restaurant/deli area… imagine dirty pots of corn, rice, and meat with kids running everywhere and then a line of roosted, raw, and or bloody pig and cow heads with blood dripping onto the walking path.

Once again Liz and I adventured the Plaza de Ponchos, the large artisan market… and Momma, we are getting A. alpaca blankets (I got the price down to $10) and sweet hammock chairs that suspend form the season that go perfectly with Liz’s new candle holder.

We almuerzo’ed in Peguche, an indigenous weaving community, and later explored el Parque de Condor, a reserve for injured hawks, eagles, and condors. I saw Hedwig. It was sweet. She loves me.

After a fancy dinner, we went to a curadera. I want a wikipedia explanation of this. Essentially, otavalan medicine person similar to a shaman. Luz Otavalo, an older Otavalan, cured four K students of bad energy and spirits. She spat aguadiente, Ecua Moonshine, on various items that are rubbed on those being purified, fire, leaves, eggs, the students, to purify them... all while the people being cleaned are in their skivvies. I kind of want to be cleaned….

THEN WE SLEPT IN THE BEST PLACE EVER… sort of. Lizzy and I bunked in a room with the softest, cleanest, beds I have ever had the pleasure to sleep on in the country, along with a steaming hot shower… we were cleaned too.