Life in Cotacachi

Nestled in the northern Andes mountains is Cotacachi, a very interesting little town of about 10,000 people with approximately 90-100 being expat Americans, 5 or 6 of which we have already met. Language is not as much of a problem as we feared because we know enough Spanish, enough of them know enough English, and with hand gestures and sign language we get by just fine, thank you.

Our entrance into town was very scary, however. Seems like we got there exactly when crowds were escaping violence from one group of street dancers toward another.

The policia were controlling the crowds with teargas as as we were pulling our luggage down this street to our hotel.We made it safely, but it was not the welcome we expected! The next day however we observed it from our balcony and it was a lot more fun to watch everything.

Seems that there are hundreds of villages around here who celebrate once a year for about 10 days in Cotacachi each wearing unique costumes associated with their village or tribe. Some of the costumes are very elaborate. They are all competing with each other and dancing to the Gods, as has been tradition since the Incas conquered the indigenous people here. Unfortunately, some ot the tribes come to town and actively try to kill members of the other tribes while they are dancing. They win favor with their Gods if they spill blood which brings them a fruitful harvest. Sort of reminds me of LA gangs, each with their own colors and goals of killing members of other gangs. Some things never change!

Other than the tribal killing thing, the street festival is fascinating. Street vendors all over. We had some talipia from one of them  this afternoon that was absolutely fantastic: fresh and flavorful.  The locals are very friendly and helpful. The weather has been beautiful, springlike temperatures with highs about 68 and lows about 50 at night.

Food is ridiculously cheap here. Pam bought a lemon this morning for 10 cents that would have cost at least 60 to 80 cents back home. Her tab on her talipia lunch was $3. We bought Pam lipstick for $1 that would have cost $8-$12.We traveled to another local city called Otavalo that has the biggest open air market in South America. There Pam bought a beautiful turquoise and sterling silver bracelet for $24 that would have cost maybe $60 in LA. By the way, taxi ride there (about 20 miles) was $5; we could have ridden the bus there for $.50.

That's it for today.....stay tuned for more Tony and Pam adventures.