Lots of money and mud

So after Montanita and Guayaquil, me and 3 of my friends (Ryan, Josh, and Melanie) decided to take a short weekend trip to Otavalo. Otavalo is only about 2 hours away, but it took us about 3, maybe more, to get there because we always happen to leave at a bad time when there is a lot of traffic (but I guess there is always a ton of traffic in Quito)! Otavalo has one of the largest markets EVER (ha maybe not, but its fricken huge), and it happens every weekend so we went there on Friday night to stay (I actually tried huka for the first time.. never again) and went to the market on Saturday. I bought waaay too many things, but they are all pretty cool things and not all for me so I figured it was ok. We spent about 2 or 3 hours shopping (even the boys)! I bought a hammock and a cute bag and lots of other things. Then we decided to go to this place called El Lechero, which is a "lucky" tree that is supposed to bring health. We decided we might get healthier if we climbed up it, so we did. I still had some stomach problems (which actually lasted about a month, but stopped about a week later) so it didn't heal me! haha We could see the prettiest lake from the top of the tree and took lots of pictures. Then we decided to take a different route back. We had tried to walk there on the way there, but got a tad lost so took a taxi the rest of the way. We wanted to go down the other side of the huge hill thing we were on, so we did. We walked down a pretty steep hill, through some crops that were taller than us, down a dirt road, and then pretty much slid and fell down this steep hill that had a bunch of crevices where the earth has split and there was tons of rocks and mud cause it had rained all day so far. I fell soo much and it was the most hilarious thing ever. My pants were disgusting and so were my tennis shoes (which now smell horribly even after my sister washed them and I will be leaving them here!). We looked pretty rough by the end of that trek, but it was so worth the laughs.