Otavalo, Ecuador
29/05/2023
The next day we checked out of the hotel and were taken back to the airport by a shuttle bus in order to rent a car there. We got a KIA and were quite impressed that all of our luggage fit in, but it was surprisingly spacious.
It was a little under two hours to get to our next stop, Otavalo, which is a small but cozy town of 50.000 people and as such significantly more relaxed than the big, 2 million people Quito. We checked into our hotel, the creatively named Hotel Otavalo, which is a very neatly designed place where we seemed to be the only guests, and parked the car nearby.
From there, we set out to get some food. We ended up at Pakari Tambo, a typical restaurant with a wide variety of fresh food and some local beer, Latitud Cero. The name refers to the equator going through the country, which also gave the country its name. We had crossed the equator some hours earlier when driving north from Quito.
With our bellies full, we got to the car to drive out to Laguna Cuicocha, a beautiful lake with surrounding mountain paths to explore. Upon arriving, a very cute dog came to us and as it would turn out followed us around our entire hike.
Sometimes leading the way, sometimes trailing behind us, she became our companion for a few hours. We even took some cute portraits and pictures of her as part of our group.
We also gave her the name Perrito, from the Spanish diminutive of Perro (dog), which besides being the wrong gender also turns out to be the Latin American Spanish word for hotdog …
The trail featured beautiful sights of the lagoon with its wonderful blue water and surrounding greenery and while we did not have the time to go full circle, we still made quite some distance and took countless pictures.
The tranquility and lack of other people made it even more magical. And while the clouds were quite dominant most of the time, the occasional rays of sun coming through were even more mystical as the colours of the blue water and surrounding greenery exuded energy.
Naturally, I also flew my drone to capture a top-down look at the scenery.
Once it started getting dark, we turned around and got back to the car in order to return to the city, where we had some simple snacks at the hotel to close the day out.
¡Hasta mañana!