Cultural trip

We went on a 2 day trip this weekend to Cotacachi. For those of you who were in Ecuador with me before, it’s the town where they make all the leather goods. We went to the organization that another PCV works with and learned about the area and the indigenous people and checked out a trade school where they make leather goods and listened/danced to a local band. We spent the night at the homes of families, which was fun, and in the morning we worked on their land- Jessica, Regan and I weeded out a plot of tomate de arbol and avocado trees. Then we went to Otovalo where there is a huge outdoor market on Saturdays where you can buy handmade clothes, jewelry, musical instruments, food and all kinds of other things.

The highlight of the trip for me was the first day when we went to a waterfall. It was gorgeous and fell into a fairly shallow pool of water so you could go and stand under it. Most of us didn’t know we were doing this so only a couple of the guys brought swim trunks, but a bunch of them went in. After watching them have fun Jessica and I and a couple other girls decided we could figure out stuff to wear to go in too, which for me was borrowing David’s shorts after he got out. It was definitely worth it.