Otavalo Women

    My photo album features the women of Otavalo because they are the ones who've created most of the textile products you'll see, and also because the women of Otavalo wear traditional dress everywhere they go, not just in the tourist market. They are Quechua, but they seem to have several subgroups with identifiable costumes. The men tend to dress in occidental fashion except for a dark fedora and often a braided pony tail. The light "Panama hat", which is actually Ecuadorian in origin, appears to be worn only by tourists.

    We got up at six.  The taxi was supposed to arrive at our door at 7:15 but got there by 7:45 and didn't clear town until 8:30 because of extra passengers he still had to pick up. Eventually there were seven of us in the cab and a lot of cargo in the roof rack - and seven on the way home, too. To get home we were told to be back at the depot before 3, but we left at 3:30 and didn't get home until 6:30, partly because of rush hour traffic and partly because we dropped off the other passengers at various locations. This is how we learn; for a similar trip next time we'll try the coach to see if it is cheaper and more comfortable, even if it takes just as long.

    I noticed police buses driving police officers (both genders) to the intersections around town, where they ostensibly direct traffic but mostly their mission seems to be to enforce the "pico y placa" initiative to curb gridlock in the city. Your licence plate determines whether you are allowed to be on the road on a particular day, and if you forget what day it is, there's a heavy fine. Any and Edwin have been caught. 

    It was too early yet for the hawkers and jugglers and amputees in wheelchairs who play chicken with the cars and hold their hands out for spare change as the cars flow around them. There's no such thing as "cutting someone off" here - a driver is expected to make his move back and forth between lanes whenever there is space for your front quarter-panel, to try to take any opportunity to move forward; if you don't people behind will honk at you.  As you move, you keep honking regularly to let people know that you are already entering a space they might have considered, and to keep other drivers aware of your presence.  Therefore, there's a continuous wall of honking sounds.

    There are a half-dozen police personnel at each intersection - usually a couple of senior officers scanning licence plates, and then a fleet of three or four "dirt-bike" style motorcycles with younger officers ready to race off in pursuit of any car that the senior officer directs them to stop. 

    When I arrived in Quito I wondered at the absolute army of police and security guards at all levels, but I've since come to wonder if it isn't a considered mechanism to deal with unemployment - certainly they get fairly easy jobs with nice uniforms, so there is a sense of respect, upholding the law and protecting people and property; and it keeps a lot of intelligent, able-bodied people employed who might otherwise form an angry, underemployed opposition to the government. I saw the same type of employment profile in the Soviet Union when I stopped there briefly thirty years ago. Who pays for all of this? The rich, for sure, and even the middle class, in terms of heavy taxation, and certainly the employers who struggle to make their factories profitable.

    One form of taxation might be hidden in mortgage interest. The government provides mortgages at interest rates in the teens while the rest of the world secures mortgages at half that rate, and less. If the gov't hadn't torn up treaties with western nations and allied itself with Chavez in Venezuela, and similarly aligned nations, perhaps some of that lendable foreign capital would be available in this economy. 

    While public transit is incredibly cheap, cars (and fines) are twice the cost you'd see in N. America, and everyone has a job but if you're wealthy enough to consider buying your own new home, it'll take a long time to get it built. As we drove to Otavalo I saw that more than half of the homes along the highway were in a state of incomplete construction, usually with the rebar still exposed on upper floors. They seem to be built piece-meal, as the owner can afford each next step, and often the ground or bottom two floors are inhabited by people or businesses while the top floors remain under intermittent construction.

    I saw a brickworks. The rough looking bricks I mentioned in a previous post were being fired there in a wood kiln, and there were piles of firewood ready to be used. I guess that's the easiest way to proceed economically; business loans must be as hard to obtain as mortgages. I reflected that our bricks are more finely made and the mortar applied with more craftsmanship, but they are also visible from the outside of our homes, whereas these bricks and this messy mortar are hidden behind a facing layer of stucco cement which is smooth and painted in bright colours - although often only at the front of the building.

    The highway was new and looked like a Canadian highway; part of it is finished, with two toll booths already set up to help pay for the continuance, and work is proceeding steadily. Once in the outskirts of Quito, we were quickly in an area where dogs ran free but darted nimbly through traffic as intelligently as human pedestrians. There were also chickens on the loose, the occasional pig, usually tethered, and dairy cattle, usually corralled or tethered but I saw one calf following his human around like a large dog. 

    We wound through steep hills, and it was easy to imagine how nerve-wracking the trip would have been in the days of narrow, ill-maintained roads. We passed one bus on fire from overheated front brakes - the tire had gone up in flames before someone ran for an "extintor" (I don't know why there wouldn't have been one on the bus) and managed to put it out.

    The Otavalo market fills the central square, and is a good experience. One feels relatively safe and secure there, and the colours and varied goods are very interesting. Unless you have a lot of shopping to do, it might take you a couple of hours at most to explore, and one can have a meal on the side street. We had Yahuarlocro, the typical locro soup of this region: the potato soup of this province of Imbabura (Quito is in the neighbouring province of Pichincha) doesn't have cheese in it. Interesting small distinctions create local variations.  It has cow intestines (stomach and lung parts), and a side plate of salad, avocado and flaky dried sheep's blood that you can stir into your soup along with a little hot sauce that is on every table instead of the N. America ketchup bottle. Yum.

Next: Christmas in Quito