Our first stop on our Ecuador journey was at a Hacienda near Otavalo, north of Quito. Otavalo is famous for their craft market. It is the largest indigenous market in Ecuador. It takes place in Plaza de Panchos. There are food and animal markets in other parts of the city.
Well we are on the road again, this time for a 10 day trip to Ecuador. We flew to Miami on Sunday and then took a four hour flight to Quito, Ecuador. It is the second highest country capital in the world at about 9,500 feet.
Cotopaxi National Park is 50 miles south of Quito. We stayed at a wonderful hacienda in the area that contains some original Inca empire walls. We also took a day trip into the park and a short hike.
Since we last wrote, we left the hacienda north of Quito on Wednesday and made our way to Cotopaxi National Park about 50 miles south of Quito. We hired a driver to take us between the two destinations, which included a stop at the equator itself, about 15 miles north of Quito.
We have been in Entebbe, Uganda for the past two days to acclimate to Africa and explore the area around Lake Victoria prior to beginning our National Park / Gorilla safari on Saturday.
We are currently on an all-night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. This is the sixth night we will spend on a train during our journey.
