MUNGO EATS Latin America

We are just outside of  Otavalo, Ecuador.  The hosteria, called Rose Cottage, is located about 3 or 4 km out of town, uphill.

We are camping in the van for the first time in at least a month, maybe more.  Because we are in the hills, it is nice and cool.  Actually, during the day, the sun is quite hot, but if you sit in the shade it is a very comfortable temperature.  Yesterday we walked into town and were getting pretty tired walking back up the hill to our campsite.  Luckily, our hosts just happened to be coming up the hill and gave us a ride. 

Today we decided to go visit a lake even further up the mountain.  Initially we were thinking about walking up the hill.  It was supposed to be about 20 minutes up the hill by car, so we figured it could only be a couple of hours walk.  We were told however that it was about 3 1/2 hours uphill, so we got a ride up the hill and decided to walk back down.  The lake is located at 3800m and when we got up there it was downright chilly!!

   We thought we would walk around the lake, but that wasn’t really possible, so we just looked at it for a few minutes, found a place to eat our lunch and then decided to start the walk back down.  LONG WALK!! It was about 12 km, took us about 3 hours.  Thank God, we only walked one way.  Mungo was a very happy hound because he got to run around off leash for the first time in a long time.  Man, did he run.  He spent the first 10 minutes running circles around us at full speed!!!  If we went 12 km, Mungo easily did 15!! 

Part of our descent was through the clouds, or the fog.  I am not sure I will ever get used to walking through the clouds.  It is truly eerie!

There are a couple of short zip lines here at the hosteria, and Sean is having a great time zipping.  I think he spent about 2 hours on the lines yesterday at least!!

Otavalo is most famous for it’s market, which is supposed to be the largest in Ecuador and famous for its craft and artisan items.  The market is the largest on Saturdays, so we will be hitting it tomorrow to search for some souvenirs.