We went to Otovalo which is about 2 hours from Quito to shop at the open air market that they have on Saturday's. We woke up to a mess of fog and rain but were on the road with Santiago by 8 AM. We drove for about an hour, came out of the rain and fog when we came upon a traffic jam that was at a dead stop. There was a truck that was on its side and had been there since 6 AM. After about an hour the truck was finally up and the road was open. It was kind of fun watching the excitement! We stopped at a little town where they made the most wonderful biscuits. There were 5 people sitting around a table piled with dough making them. They were delicious!! On to the market! It was awesome and I think Hayden had a little too much fun haggling with the all the vendors. It is so colorful. Very beautiful just to look. They had everything from trinkets to beautiful clothing and of course lots of veggies and local foods. We will definitely go back as we cut it a little short because it started to rain. On the way home we stopped at Cuicocha Lake which is a volcanic crater that has filled with water and has two small volcanic islands in the middle. The last time it errupted was 3000 years ago. As it rained it filled up and turned into a lake. The color of the water is so blue. No fish live in the lake but there are water chickens that swim around and 0n the islands there are rabbits, birds, guinea pigs and small wolves. It was awesome! Very beautiful even though it was raining. We took a boat ride around it. Danni was pretty excited. Glad to see he likes boats as we will spend the summer on ours. We got home after 6 PM and everyone was exhausted. I have lots more pictures that I will load later. Loading pics takes for ever! Today we woke up to sunshine so I am thinking we are heading to Parque La Carolina again. There is so much going on there on the weekends and we could all use a little time out in the sun. I will blog more tonight. Mari
