Otavalo - Where Ruminawi Meets Bolivar

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April 24^th

^{(Pictures on the way soon)}

     Last Sunday morning, I sat in the Parque Bolivar here in Otavalo, watching and listening to the town band play a selection of Ecuadorian and Bolivian music. A hundred or so other people were there almost entirely locals, spread around the civic square under the watchful gaze of Simon Bolivar high up on the front of the town hall A few palm trees wavered in a light breeze and the volcanic edifice of Imbabura guarded the town.  It was such a rich and restful atmosphere – one that I long to bottle and bring home so that I might recapture the flavor. Maybe I cannot use a literal bottle, but I spent every moment soaking up all that I could, leaving a few tears as payment for the pleasure.

Simon Bolivar - the Great Liberator Overlooks the Parque

     I truly love this town. Walking around here is a daily adventure into a mystical book where one never quite knows how the plot will twist.  Curiously, for a place that is listed on almost every tourist guide of Ecuador, we see relatively few other Blancos, except perhaps during the Saturday market when the streets around the main square overflow with additional stalls. Even then, the vast bulk of human activity is among locals, or people from the nearby towns. 

     Otavalo is truly a trading town.  Typically, we take the 20-minute bus ride from Esperanza de Azama, arriving at the main bus depot which is alive with people carrying anything from a few personal possessions to large sacks of potatoes or reams of fabric. There may be a selection of goats or chickens for sale by the exit to the street, where a line of food stalls serves travelers a selection of hot food – rice, corn, soups, and some bubbling oily vats of the parts of animals not normally served in any western street restaurant.  We walk along the street towards the main market – the Plaza del Ponchos – past street vendors selling fruit from wheelbarrows, jewelry from carefully arranged portable trays, or even underwear from the back of a truck parked on the side of the road.

     Most noticeable to the eye of the visitor is the clothing worn by the people here, the majority of whom are indigens. At least half of the women wear a long navy blue or black skirt, a white blouse embroidered with flowers, and a scarf or shawl over one shoulder.  Older women often wear a head-dress of some kind, often a shawl that has been folded a balanced carefully on the head.  

 Fewer of the men wear ‘traditional’ clothing.  Those that do wear white trousers and typically a blue poncho, topped off with a hat.  Interestingly, of the women who choose to wear modern clothing, very few can be found wearing skirts or dresses.  Almost all have on slacks, long-sleeved top, and given the cooler weather here, a sweater or shawl.  Most of the young men wear slightly baggy jeans, T-shirt and a light jacket.  Meanwhile, many of the teenagers, as everywhere, seek their own identity, experimenting with a variety of fashions, but it is not uncommon to see a boy sporting a carefully quaffed hairdo, expensively ripped jeans and rock star t-shirt walking hand-in-hand with a girl wearing traditional clothing.  Such a mix is part of what makes this town so rich.

     Otavalo is a relatively wealthy town, as witnessed by mostly good roads, regular garbage collection, bustling activity, and main streets in which there are no empty stores (though a walk through some of the outer areas reveals more dereliction). If wealth were to be counted by the number of women wearing the traditional gold necklaces, it would be very high. The busy traffic consists mostly of smaller cars, vans and taxis, with SUV trucks being the flashier choice of vehicle for some.  At night they can be seen and heard driving around town with music playing loud enough to shake the eyeballs, and an array of lights flashing on the underside of the car.  We see very few, if any Mercedes, Audis or other such luxury vehicles.

     The Plaza del Ponchos is the main tourist venue where one can find a vast array of blankets, jewelry, art-work, scarves and, of course, ponchos. Walking through by day, it is a maze of dozens of stalls packed tightly together so that the first time visitor can easily lose sense of direction. Walking through, the vendors will call your attention to their wares, but they are not aggressively pushy.  Indeed, the only vendors we found who actually follow one down the street have come from Spain or Italy, and are not locals.  It is difficult to comprehend the true nature of the economy of this market.  Each day, dozens put in a huge effort to set up their stalls, carrying in great bags either by hand, or on carts.  They may spend anywhere from 8-10 hours here on a normal day (more on a Saturday) with not too many people passing through, then pack everything up in the evening.  The setting up and breaking down of the market are both the most interesting times to watch it.  Time-lapse film would show a market square jam packed with a vast array of color being packed into the huge bags, and secreted into various doorways and trucks around the edge of the market where they are stored until the next day.  By around 7:00, the market square seems smaller, though still busy.  Groups of men sit in the permanent stalls playing cards or board games.  Children play tag, and along one side of the square, a line of orange tents is erected, playing host to a range of temporary restaurants at which the locals gather to eat and perhaps contemplate their day.

     On Saturdays, and to a lesser extent Wednesdays, the market expands enormously. The animal market deserves a separate story, so I will write about that later.  Suffice to say that one early Saturday while staying in town, the first thing I saw out of the window was an elderly couple walking a pig on a leash along the street as if it where a Labrador. The somewhat sleepy plaza becomes just the center of a bubbling hive of activity as many of the surrounding streets are taken over by so many more vendors. Depending on which street you venture down, you may find more of the touristy offerings, jewelry, musical instruments, or a vast array of clothing of all kinds.  This is the day when, especially in the summer months, bus-loads of Blancos are brought in from Quito, but even so, the overwhelming human presence is still Ecuadorian. It is quite liberating to have the opportunity to walk the markets without the need to buy any of the stuff – we can do that on other days when it is more peaceful, and the prices are rumored to be better. Instead, one can amble the streets soaking up the sights, sounds and smells of a huge social event and be constantly curious about what is around the next corner.

     There are other markets around town too.  For the first few weeks, we favored a vegetable and fruit market uptown where we could collect two great bags of produce, spending just two or three dollars. We have tended to stick with the conventional fruits – apples, pears, and bananas, but we have tried some of the more local ones, including babacos, pitahayas, chirimoyas, guanabanas, maracuyas (passion fruit), tree tomatoes and moras (a local type of blackberry).  I know that in the coming months when we must venture into the supermarkets at home, I will miss the flavor and character of these kinds of markets.  A big part of it is the sense that we are dealing not with a faceless commercial enterprise such as Whole Foods, but with individual family concerns. It is quite normal to buy from a woman who is not only managing the stall, but tending to her children as well, making it easy for us to resist haggling for the sake of it, and provide an extra tip on occasions.  As we learned from the markets in Quito, these are people who work incredibly long hours for very little return. It is humbling to be in their presence given an awareness of opportunities we have that they can only dream about.

     More recently, we discovered another produce market on the other side of town that has the advantage of being closer to the bus depot.  This one is close to an old railway line along which we found the potato market – I counted at least twenty different types of potato one day, although there are many thousands grown in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Most of them do not see the market, but are often grown and shared between families and communities.  Alas, I have not taken the time to explore the flavors and textures in cooking, but simply being in the home of the potato is rewarding.

    

     There is the old saying about many cities such as Chicago that if you don’t like the weather, just wait a couple of hours.   In Otavalo it seems that if you get tired, wait a while, and a live band will perform, or a parade will pass by.  We have lost count of the number of parades we have seen – the most notable of which was on Good Friday, and written about a few weeks ago.  A few evenings ago, we went into town to meet our new friend Jesu, a merchant in the market here who we first met in Maynard at the October Fest of all places.  Sure enough, while walking into the town, we came across a large parade of many dancing groups in elaborate costumes and groups of school children carrying lanterns.  It proved to be the 75^th anniversary of one of the schools in town.  There are many schools in Otavalo so presumably each gets their own parade.  The next morning, I passed through the town on my way to visit a school in another community. The taxi taking me there had to divert around yet another parade, albeit a smaller one, much to the annoyance of the driver who yelled at the policeman directing the traffic.

Another parade waiting to start

     Life is not all sweetness here of course.  Much as Otavalo is a wonderfully romantic Andean location for us to visit, like any other city, there are problems.  There are those on the street who may be homeless (hard to tell), and areas of poverty in the outskirts of town.  Returning from Jesus’ home the other night, we became partially embroiled in an undercover police operation where they stopped a vehicle right next to us, hauled people out of the car, giving one in particular a hard time, and prevented us from moving away from the scene immediately (after a few minutes, they finally let the taxi back out and take us home another way).

     This entry is perhaps already too long, but we have to return to the Parque Bolivar, just a few blocks up the Calle Sucre from the Plaza del Ponchos.  We walk past an assortment of stores – electronics, restaurants, mini-groceries, clothing (both modern and traditional) and even a few instrument shops in one of which I finally bought myself a charango – details to follow. The Parque Bolivar is now one of my favorite places.  Piped music plays quietly from discreetly placed speakers, even when the band is playing. People of all ages and cultures amble slowly along the pathways, nibbling at ice creams, fruit or pastries that are for sale from street vendors. The busy fruit and veg market is just one block away, and some people wander in and out of the renaissance church of San Luis. 

     In the center is a large statue of the head of Ruminawi, one of the last Inca warriors who tried to resist the Spanish invasion of this land. Defeated in battle, he still managed to order Quito to be burned, and the temple virgins to be killed to ‘preserve their honour’. He was tortured by the Spanish in an attempt to reveal the location of the presumed Inca gold, but never divulged the secret. Three hundred years later, Simon Bolivar and Antonio Sucre led the struggle for independence from Spain and two of the main streets are now named after them.  Such violence seems so far removed from the mood of the square now, especially when the town band adds the magic of great music to the ambiance of a leisurely Sunday afternoon. Perhaps we can linger a little longer – just one more song.

...and the band plays on.

More!!!!!!!!!!!!!!