Throughout our traveling from community to community, the touristy little city of Otavalo has been our central hub. When we first got there, before we had spent any time in our host towns, we were very turned off by the place. We wandered around like paranoid tourists (which we were) in our backpacks and hiking boots. We grabbed the first lunch we could find and were always sure we were being ripped off. After a few hours we bussed out to Pijal, glad to leave.
Now, after spending time in the small and sometimes intense communities, Otavalo is our place of refuge. It offers relaxing hostels, hot showers, and the foods we have been homesick for. Upon coming back to it, which we have time and time again, we’ve discovered that there is much more to the city than the bleak side streets we originally found ourselves on. It is a strange but fascinating little town, known for its overflowing markets containing any souvenir you could want from Ecuador. Every Saturday morning busloads of white tourists with flip flops and fat wallets pour into the streets, buying up everything in sight. Their cash has made many in the city rich, something not many indigenous communities can say (in fact, Otavalo is one of the wealthiest indigenous cities in the Americas). It’s saturated with money, but the wealth does not seem to have ‘sunk in’ yet to an infrastructural level. Amidst the crumbling cinderblock buildings are fancy cars driven by young men in Abercrombie and Holister clothes. It is like a snazzy music video land, inspired directly by western culture. While to us this seems a bit cheesy, the lifestyle achieved in Otavalo is sought after by many, including those in the communities we have been working in. Most of the young people there leave as soon as they can to go work and buy suped-up cars. Yet to us the cool thing is to go volunteer in the same places they are abandoning, after growing up in the US.
Despite its strangeness, we’ve grown fond of Otavalo. We like wandering the markets and trying to find something inexpensive and delicious to eat. We’ve spent some great afternoons working on the guides in the sunny TV lounge in the hostal, intermittently playing pool and swinging in hammocks on the roof deck. The best thing about it is just being able to wander as we please, whereas in the communities we are always worrying about not upsetting our host families and planning things with community members. It is just nice to have that pressure off at times, that and the pizza : )
(picture http://farm1.static.flickr.com/73/172584755_6f99d1835c.jpg?v=0<9)
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