Month: November 2007

We took a recent visit to Ecuador’s largest natural lake, Lago San Pablo.  It was nice to see a natural lake since Maryland has none.  There are several nice hotels lakeside, and we stayed in one called Lago San Pablo.  The lake it very close to Otovalo, Ecuador, which has the famous open air market – largest in Latin America.  Otovalo is also the model for indigenous people finding a working “balance” between the commercial world of the 21st century and their cultural heritage dating back hundreds of years.  The people of Otovalo dress traditionally every day, but not for the tourists.  This is the charm of Otovalo, and it is something you can both see and feel while there.  We visited Saturday and bought a few things, not a lot.  So if you were expecting an Otovalan stocking stuffer…well…you’re just going to have to come visit and buy one for yourself!We also visited a park called Bosque de Peguche, which is lovely and hides a beautiful cascada (waterfall).  For hundreds of years, the locals have come to this waterfall because of its healing powers.  Young children and even babies are dipped in these waters for good luck.  A few members of our extended family were brought here as children.  The waterfall is fairly large, and after following a trail to the top, we discovered a bunch of people wading into a crevasse further upstream.  After figuring out that you had to enter a small cave (pitch black hole to be more precise) to pop out the other end, what was waiting for you was another water fall.  After some deliberation, Ethan, Meghan and I took the plunge, literally.  You can see some pics and video (last image is a link to the video) of our time there.  It was quite a thrill!

The weekend ended with some fun times at another of Lago San Pablo’s resorts, Cabañas del Lago where they have nice water park (we did some tubing – check the video) jumping off the platforms, miniature golf, and of course, the rabbit park.  Rabbit park?  Don’t ask me, but the country is fond of rabbits – not for food, but as pets.  On the other hand, they eat guinea pig, so waddayagonnado?