Departed from Quito

Dear Mom and Dad,

I first want to say that I love your comments and everyone elses! It helps bring a piece of home to Charlie and I. We laugh and talk about each one, so keep them coming!!!

We have offically left Quito and are staying in Otavalo. Originally we were only going to stay here for two nights, but we love it and our hostel. It's $9 a night per person, which makes it $18 for the two of us. This is cheaper then in Quito. We were paying $11.25 a night per person. In fact, everything here seems to be cheaper and safer for that fact. Our hostel is awesome! We have our own room again, but this time we have our OWN bathroom! This is so nice to shower when we want and not have to wait for the other guests to finish up. We do not have our own kitchen, but I'll take the change anytime. We also have our own TV in our room. This is ok except the only thing we understand is the soccer games. SOOO MUCH SOCCER. The beds are softer here then at the Vibes, but the pillows are harder. You just can't win. Maybe our next hostel will have both. One can only be hopeful. Roberto is the owner, and he really took the time to explain everything there is to do here. We didn't realize how many activities there are, which is why we decided to stay a little longer. I'm guessing we will be here until Sunday.

Getting to Otavalo was realatively easy. It cost 25 cents to ride the public bus to the main bus terminal in Quito. The public bus was super crowded and watching our packs seemed every lasting. The only time I've been nervous about traveling is when I have had everything on me at once, but in broad daylight, there really isn't any danger. There was an incident on the bus when the driver closed the door too quickly on an old man and the old man fell. When the old mad got off the bus, he straight up smacked the driver in the face and yelled some profanity. Way to stick up for yourself! I was impressed. The second bus was like a charter bus to Otavalo. That cost $2.20 a person and the ride was about 3 hours long. While we were driving we saw and smelt pine trees. A little weird if you ask me because we were crossing the equator, but yes there are pine trees here. Here is a picture of us hott and sweaty on the bus.

Here are a few pictures of the sights we saw as we traveled to Otavalo. The mountain looking pics are actually active volcanoes.

I forgot to mention that Charlie and I had to walk 45 minutes to the first bus station, and once we arrived there, we realized that we had the key to our first hostel. We felt so bad that we walked all the way back to return it to Santiago. Such good people we are. :) On our way back to the bus station, we stopped at Charlie's favorite place to eat. It had the chicken wraps that I previously mentioned. We were the last customers the night before and the first customers in the morning. They hooked us up fat with our last wrap. Thank you, Ali Baba.

Today we walked one hour to one of the most beautiful places I have seen Cascada Peguche. It's a beautiful waterfall with lots of hiking. Here are some of our favorite pictures.This first picture is of the scene we saw walking to the waterfall. Cows everywhere, and I'm an Iowa girl. I was still surprised by the number of cattle roaming around. A little bit intimadating. The pictures with the cement are called trenches. Charlie gave me a lesson on them, but they are used to carry water to the town.

We also visited an Inca Museum. It was soooo cool. You walk into a cave and see where the Inca king resided. There were many artifacts, and it was lead by one of the ingenious people. It's a good thing I could understand Spanish because he didn't really speak any English. For the most part, Charlie could follow along, but it was nice for me to translate in English the parts he didn't understand.We weren't able to take pictures or sneak pictures for that matter because it was a one-on-one tour. I would say 75% of the population would not be able to tour this museum because at times we were literally rock climbing to get to the next sight. There were small crawl spaces that required us being on our hands and knees. The old, obese, and unwilling would not have made it through. Safe to say, it also wasn't handicap accessable.These pictures are of the outside of the museum and of the sign that describes some of the things we saw.




We spent a great deal of yesterday hunting for peanut butter. All we wanted was to bring our own lunch on our hike in the waterfall with peanut butter sandwiches. Do you know how hard it is to ask for something that you don't remember how to say in Spanish. We looked, and I tried describing the creamy brown stuff that goes on bread but isn't butter.We finally gave up thinking that there was no peanut butter in Otavalo until we went for our nightly wine run. Can you believe it? The LIQUER store had peanut butter and knew exactly what I was trying to describe. I kissed the jar I was so happy at that point.

The food market, where one can buy anything from fruit to vegetables to warm meats, was incredible. I could have easily gotten lost in it. The market seemed to be at least six blocks in radius. Of course we did not buy any of the meats because they don't believe in refrigeration. We did buy hot dogs that were so disgusting that there is no way I could even swallow one bite. I ended up eating a vegetarian dish of white rice, carrots, green peppers, and onions last night. At least we bought two pieces of cake: chocolate and white. I'll suffer through any gross meal if it means a delicious dessert at the end. The hot dogs did not faise Charlie, and he ended up eating five of them. Yes mom, I am sharing the responsibilites. I made the entire meal by myself. :)

Today we are going to a small town named Cotacachi. It's a really small town that Roberto recommended to us to visit at least once. They are known for their hand made leather and good cheap food. Our legs need a rest from all the walking we did, and tomorrow we are hiking around a volcano. This should take at least four hours and Roberto said the town is expensive to buy food. With our peanut butter, we now have no problem in packing our lunches. :)

Love always,

Matti Jo

PS. This post may be a bit confusing to read because it took me a full two days to write it due to the horrible internet service. I´m so frustrated that I don't even care to proof read it. Ugh.