Around Otavalo

Last week we took Josh's parents to Otavalo and spent two nights there. The first day we took a tour to some of the surrounding communities where we saw locals making some of their crafts.

Our first stop was to a house right by San Pablo Lake where we saw this girl weaving mats made of reeds grown at the lake. It was incredible how fast she could weave! All the homes in the area all had bundles of reeds out to dry so they could make these mats. They are used for all sorts of things, and these are sometimes used as people's beds.


This is us in front of San Pablo Lake with Volcano Imbabura in the background.


We also visited the beautiful Peguche Waterfall, which we had been to twice before. Each time we have loved it just as much.

Our next stop was to see how some of their traditional instruments are made and played. This man showed us how they make a 6 tube whistle, then he demonstrated how to play this big horn. It would be used to call local villagers to celebrations or parties, but he said now they just use cell phones. ha ha!



We just loved this next couple!! They weave scarves and other things out of wool, and the man has been doing it for over 60 years! He is the last person to do everything by hand. He brushes the wool, spins his own yarn, makes his own natural dyes, and weaves everything by hand. To make one scarf it will take 5 days, whereas a machine can make 5 scarves a day. So even though he puts so much more time and efforts into his handicrafts, he is quite proud they are all handmade and says the quality is the very best.





We drove up the road from Otavalo a few miles to the town of Cotacachi, known for its many many leather markets. You can find just about anything made of leather here! I couldn´t help but buy a genuine leather purse for super cheap!


Last stop for the day...Cuicocha lake. It's a lake in a dormant volcano crater, with two islands in the middle. It was absolutely beautiful!! You can take a boat to the islands which we didn't have time for, and you can also hike all the way around, a 5 hour trip. It would have been so fun to do that! We also got incredible views of the surrounding mountain valley.


The following day was the famous huge Saturday market where we stocked up on our last souvenirs, and also saw the food markets and the big live animal market in the morning. It was lots of fun!