Fuya Fuya

It´s Wednesday in Otavalo and Brad and I are in town for a couple of hours today between our work shifts up at La Luna. We visited a book store but found the English books were too expensive to buy, even used. I found the post office in order to buy a couple of stamps so I could send a letter and possibly a post card back to the States but there were several people in line all waiting to send huge packages of what looked like woven sweaters and scarves so I decided to wait on the stamp purchase. It´s fun to walk around Otavalo on days when the market is not happening because things are much calmer and far fewer tourists are in the streets.
La Luna has been almost empty of guests since Sunday so Brad and I took the opportunity to do one of the many hikes in the hills that surround Otavalo. We walked 10.5km up a road to Laguna Mojanda, a large lake in what appears to be the crater of a huge volcano but is really just a high altitude lake sitting in a basin between sharp little peaks and steep green hillsides. To the west is Volcan Fuya Fuya whose 4260 meter high summit lies just about 2km beyond the lake. When we arrived at the lake, it was cloudy but very calm and after a short sandwich break, we climbed to the top of Fuya Fuya and were greeted with beautiful views mostly to the south toward Quito and down the sides of the mountain to Otavalo and lots of very hilly green farmland. On extremely clear days you can see all the way to Quito, several snowy Andes peaks, and some people even say you can see Colombia. Even without the long distance views, it was a thrill to stand on the peak watching the mist float in and to enjoy the complete isolation and silence of being the only people around. We finished our day by hiking the road back to La Luna. As we collapsed into the hammocks on the porch to rest our legs, the first rain we have seen in Ecuador began to fall and it was beautiful to watch the parched grass and dusty roads get a much needed soaking.
After a couple of days with no guests at La Luna, the place is starting to fill up again and we are expecting almost full occupancy on Friday and Saturday this weekend. For the past 2 weekends, a group of 8 American students and their 2 guides has lived in the dormitory and we have been serving them breakfast and sometimes lunch and dinner which gets a bit hectic (but fun) especially when they all make special requests to go along with the order they place off the menu (instead of just avodado slices on the nachos, make it into guacamole and add a touch of lime, oh and light on the cheese). It´s pretty interesting to meet all of the travellers who pass through on their way to other adventures. We get great information about places we hope to visit and we have a growing list of contacts who we hope to keep meeting up with throughout our travels. Just a few more days left at our job in Otavalo and then it´s off to Quito on Monday. It has been incredibly relaxing to be in one place for 2 weeks and we have made some good friends with the owners and others who have also enjoyed staying for more than just a night or two at La Luna. I think, however, that I will be ready to move on to more travels when the time comes!
Hope all is well and keep up the comments...we love hearing from you!
Anika
P.S. more pictures here http://picasaweb.google.com/swiftbradley/Colombia# and http://picasaweb.google.com/swiftbradley/Ecuador#