I had a great vacation this weekend. We left Friday morning for Cotacachi, which is about 2 hours north of Quito. We took a bus for $1, which is really cheap considering how far we traveled. We got dropped off right outside Cotacachi, and took a cab to the center, where all the hotels are. We found a hotel that was really nice for only $10 including breakfast. Cotacatchi is known for its leather goods, and boy is it. Every shop that we passed was selling some kid of leather good. We ended up shopping at the artisan market, because things are cheaper and you can bargain. I ended up buying a leather wallet for $3 and a chompa (sweatshirt) for $8. I also bought souvenirs for people. Since it was Viernes Santo, they had a festival going on as well, which included a concert and a whole block of artisan shops. We went back to our hotel around 10. Around 10:30, we heard commotion outside and decided to see what was going on. It turns out there was a parade going on for Semana Santa, right there in the street. It was crazy, people just ran out of our hotel to go join it.
Anyway, we eventually went to bed and woke up the next morning ready to go to Ibarra. We were traveling with Eduardo, our friend here. He was on Ecuadorian time; he kept telling us were leaving in “10 minutes”. Those ten minutes became an hour and half. It turns out his friends were waiting for us in Ibarra, so we really needed to hurry. We took a taxi to Ibarra for only $1 a person, and met up with his friends. They would continue to drive us to El Angel, which is a small town on the outskirts of Ibarra. There, we would stay at Eduardo’s friend Jose’s ranch.
We got there about 50 minutes later. We had lunch, and I had an amazing mix of Norteño and Sprite. After lunch, we watched the men fight the bulls like matadors. Of course, since they weren’t real ones, it made it better. They were wusses, they would start to move towards the bull and then chicken out and run back behind the safe zone. It actually got better as the time went on, a few men got knocked down by the bull but there were no serious injuries. The men think it was the best thing in the world; they were laughing and arguing over who had the best injury. It was fun to watch even though it was very dangerous.
We headed back to the hacienda and ate dinner, drank, danced, and played darts.
The next morning, we watched the boys target practice. They were really good; they hit all the targets. We also walked around for a bit before leaving.
On our way back to Quito between El Angel and Ibarra, we saw a lot of cars pulled over the side of the road, and people looking down the cliff. Being curious, Jose pulled over so we could look. We looked down the cliff and didn’t know what the hell we were supposed to be seeing. Jose finally pointed out to us that the mileage (kiloage?) marker was bent over, as if a car rammed into it. Sure enough, way, way, down the cliff (at least 1,000 ft) was a car all mangled in the river. It was sad but cool at the same time, since us US people had never seen anything like this before. This kind of thing only happens in the movies. We got our cameras out and took videos and pictures of the poor car in the river. We were wishing we had seen it live, but then again thinking of how scary it would be to watch. Apparently, this kind of thing happens in Ecuador, and it’s not really a big deal. I’m just glad it wasn’t me, although I have to admit that if I were to die, that would be a pretty cool way to do it.
Anyway, tomorrow I have class. The good thing is that Friday is my last day of the first cycle of classes; we have until Wednesday of next week off. Marie’s mother is flying in, and we are going to be doing some traveling with her, as Marie invited me along.
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