Market Madness

And sweet alpaca-wear there was! Got myself an amazingly soft sweater and a beautiful blanket for just $20 and a little bit of haggling. The market in Sasquisili was AMAZING! It's a tiny little town with next to nothing there, but every Thursday morning, people flock there from all over to buy their grains, veggies, shoes, pots & pans and just about anything else they could ever need. There are not a whole lot of tourists at this time of year, so the two blonde girls get quite a lot of looks (some good and some not-so-good) trekking around with giant backpacks.

The traffic here is absoultely insane! Yield, merge, signal. . . rules of the North American road clearly do not apply. And just when I thought I'd seen it all, I spot a barefoot woman with a baby riding on the back of a motorcycle in the midst of the chaos. Helmets? What are those?

Even with our newly acquired alpaca-wear, we've had about enough of the high altitude chills. Tomorrow we're flying to Medellin (yes, that's in Colombia. . . ) and heading to Cartagena in search of some Caribbean sunshine. Don't worry, we've done a lot of reading and conversing about Colombia and the northern part is totally safe - thanks to Pablo, it just got a bad rep. If anything, it sounds like Colombians are trying to prove their reputation wrong by making it even more safe than most places in South America.

Middle Earth

After a day´s delay due to some flight missing in Miami, I finally made it to Quito, Ecuador! At 2850m, it´s a tad bit chilly, but a nice place to spend a few days nonetheless. The elevation didn´t seem to effect me too much, so my travel buddy Alecia and I ventured north to the Equator today to hop between hemispheres and potentially bust some of these so called energy myths that we´ve heard so much about.

I´m happy to report that I apparently weigh less at the Equator due to the fact that there is less gravity there, but I also seem to be weaker and off balance (due to the mysterious energies). I also witnessed that the toilets do indeed flush counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, clockwise in the southern hemisphere and just drain straight down on the Equator line - I saw it with my own eyes people!

Heading south to Latacunga tomorrow to check out what is apparently the most important market in the country so hopefully we´ll find some sweet alpaca-wear to keep us warm at the high altitudes. I´m sure it won´t compare to the Shuswap Lake Haven knitted wonders but it should cost a few pennies less I´m thinking as I spent a whopping $20 yesterday on food, accommodations and a journey to the middle of the earth and back! I could definitely get used to this. . .