Sexy new blog & market madness

Howdy everyone, what do you think of the new look & feel for my blog?

Today I am back in Quito, leaving this evening for an overnight bus to Lago Agrio where I begin a 5 day tour of the Amazon.  Here we stay in the jungle in huts, look for anacondas, caimans and pink dolphins, take canoe rides and fish for piranhas.

Yesterday I did a day tour out to Otavalo to check out the largest markets in South America.  They were pretty big and there was some fantastic stuff there.  I could easily have gone nuts if I didn't have to lug everything around for another 3 months.  However, there wasn't quite as much variety as I was expecting, as with markets in most places there were alot of stalls with the same stuff.  You were also expected to haggle for things, but that was fun as the people running the stalls were all lovely, although admittedly I didn't really haggle to hard everything was already pretty cheap.  The other thing was I had heard about the animal markets there were supposed to be good to have a look around, but those markets are actually in a different place and our tour didn't go there which was a bit disappointing, it would have been great for a little photo taking.

The other place we did go to was a little town that specialises in leather goods.  There was this long streets just chockers with stores selling cheap leather bags, jackets, gloves, etc.  So yes, the amazingly soft and fantastically red leather jacket was a necessary purchase.

The markets themselves were also a great place for photos taking.  When we arrived our guide told us 'make sure you use your zoom to take photos because sometimes people don't like their photo being taken or will ask you for a dollar'.  But I found the people to be nice and not mind.  I asked some people if I could take photos of their stalls and they didn't care or ask for money.  But the photos look great, there are all the people in their traditional dress and the stalls are just bursting with colours.