Otavalo, Quito Tour and Fiesta

I apologize that it´s been so long since my last post. And I know that I said that I would post pictures soon but I´m having a little bit of trouble uploading my pictures to this computer so I have to wait until someone can help me. Until then, you´ll have to settle for boring, no picture posts.

On the 13th, the whole OSSO group went to Otavalo. We traveled by bus for about two hours and stopped at a few scenic sites on the way there. I can´t wait until I can upload my pictures to show you. In Otavalo, there is this huge market kind of like the Artesian I was telling you about. We spent about two hours at the market itself and then we went to Wood Town which is about 20 minutes from Otavalo. Wood Town was awesome. There´s this man and his wife who are members of the church there. The man is a wood carver by profession and he owns his own wood shop that is behind his house. I think that OSSO gives him most of his business because he carves mostly church related stuff. He is a really talented carver. He carves very artistic statues of Joseph Smith, Jesus, as well as the majority of the temples.

Oh, on the way to Otavalo, whenever we would stop at a different town on the way, we would pick up a few native Otavaloans who usually just get on tourist buses and sing songs and sell their stuff. It was pretty cool. There were these two kids that were selling bracelets and they were just too cute not to buy some.

Jumping forward a week, on Friday, we had a short Quito tour. It was supposed to last all day but it ended after about an hour. On the 28th of September, Ecuador is voting on the new constitution and there was a demonstration in Olde Towne on Friday having to do with that. Don´t worry, it was pretty peaceful. We couldn´t get through Olde Towne because there were way too many people so we just cancelled the tour. We were planning on doing a little bit of site seeing in the afternoon but it started massively pouring so we didn´t. So, a bunch of us ended up going to the Artesian for a few hours. We also went to Basken Robbins for dessert. We were planning on going to Crepes and Waffles which is this restaurant that serves really good food but it didn´t open until later on in the day so we went to Basken Robbins instead, which is right across the street. A note about Crepes and Waffles: they serve the best vanilla shakes on the planet. So if any of you end up coming to Quito for whatever reason, make sure and go to Crepes and Waffles. They also have really good Chicken Broccoli Cheese crepes (Dad, you would love them.)

Friday night, we had a Fiesta for Angel and Jenny. Jenny´s birthday was Friday and Angel´s birthday is tomorrow so we had a fiesta in their honor. It was awesome. There was a mariachi band and everything. Let me tell you, Ecuadorians really know how to party. A bunch of the workers from one of the orphanages and even one of the nuns came. It was pretty awesome.

Well, I think that´s it for now. Again, I´m so sorry I haven´t posted pictures yet. I will as soon as I can. I love you all and hope that everything is going well! Chao!!