Let the shopping commence!

Let the shopping commence!

Hola all from sunny Otavalo! We´re living it up this weekend blowing cash on indigenous wear. There are alpaca sweaters, hats, gloves, carpets, gourds, and nic-nacs galore. Needless to say, my Christmas shopping is taken care of.

Our first week in Chilcapamba was my best week in Ecuador. All of the kids are super great; they love to hang all over Ben and I during our workday. We´re building a play-structure for playground of the local school. We’ve completed two pulpets and a bridge connecting them. It’s been so much fun designing the structures. Once again, everything is made out of wood, so we have to go to a little farm that grows Eucalyptus trees to harvest our supplies. We´re all extremely happy to be in the Andes doing this work!

Another highlight of living in the Andes is that I, standing at a mere 5 foot 8, am a giant amongst the plethora of 4-foot men that live here. We run into them periodically simply because they only come up to our waist height!

Barbequed Cuy.

Barbequed Cuy.

Today for lunch guinea pig is on the menu. It´s called Cuy in the Andes and is a favorite for the locals. I feel bad, thinking back to a time when some of my friends had pet guinea pigs, but I have no reservations. Today for breakfast I browsed the street stalls. No one pays more than two dollars for an extremely hardy breakfast. Today´s selection was a fresh Talapia fish with potatoes, rice, hot sauce, and a salad of tomatoes and onions.

Well, Ben and I are off to take down the market once again. I think that a sweater might be in order.

More to come tomorrow?