Otavalo home stay

We arrived in Otavalo, a beautiful city, in the Andes Mountains. Wendy, Mary Ellen and I are staying with the Ruiz family for 10 days. Every morning we attend Spànish classes. In my class our teacher is Veronica. Andy and I are the students. We have had homework the past two days. Writing essays in Spànish. We are required to speak only Spanish in class. And the last two days we went walking through El Mercado de Ponchos (a huge market place) to learn more words. Today I learned to bargain (regratar) for a better price when shopping. In the afternoons we travel to places close to Otavalo. We went to the Cascadas de Peguche (waterfalls in the Andes) and did some mountain climbing. We stopped often because the altitude makes it hard to breath. Today we visited a local clinic that practices indigenous medicine along with western medicine. I was treated by a shaman. The cuy, guinea pig, told her I was healthy. More details about that when I return.

Our family is wonderful. We have three traditional meals a day with the entire family. Chicken, beef, fish, rice, fruit, and and more ways to prepare corn than I had ever imagined. The family includes parents, grandparents, children, aunts and uncles. They come and go all day long. We spend our evenings learning and playing games with the kids.

I am writing this from an internet cafe. They are all over and very busy. Most people do not have internet access at home. I make my phone calls from cabinas de telefono, or phone booths. Calling the USA is extremely inexpensive from las cabinas. We have been to museums and listened to indigenous music. Right along side the cars on the streets the indigenous people walk their cows, pigs, and sheep.
Our family just purchased one dozen chickens to raise and eat. The most interesting meal I´ve eaten so far has been goat.

The traditional dress here varies from typical western clothing to traditional indigenous clothing: ponchos, sombreros, pantalones, vestidos, zapatas, etc. All clothing is very colorful and from alpaca, llama, sheep or woven.

It has been sunny and cool here. They say you can experience all 4 seasons in one day in Otavalo. It´s true. Today was sunny and warm in the morning, cool and raining in the afternoon, and COLD with no cloud cover in the evening. We are traveling to Mojanda tomorrow. It is at a higher altitude than Otavalo, so we have been told to ¨dress warm.