In Otavalo, Ecuador...

Afternoon all,

OK, now I am in Otavalo. Otavalo is small town in the Andes near the Imbabura volcano. The landscapes are beautiful here, massive mountains, extinct volcanoes, stunning. I am here working for Lafarge commissioning two kiln cameras.

This is the centre of Otavalo. I am staying in El Indio Inn, which is a small hotel with a restaurant. It is hard work walking, around here as the town is at 2600 mtr altitude. I can notice the lack of oxygen. When I climb to the burner platform I am completely out of breath... (Yeah, yeah, less of the fat b'stard jokes please...)

This is the Imbabura Volcano. It is shrouded in clouds most of the time so I am still waiting to get a piccie of the snow covered top... It is 3100 mtr high...

This is the view from the front gate of the Lafarge cement plant...

This was on the road from Quito to Otavalo. I arrived in Quito a few hours late as Aerolineas Galapagos had conveniently changed their flight schedule and cancelled my flight that day. Luckily they had another flight a bit later so got there in the end... My driver Mr Carlos was very helpfull pointing out local landmarks etcetera...

This was the outskirts of Quito, the capital. The place looked very much like any other big city in South America. It was nice and warm weather which was to change as we made our way to Otavalo, which is a two hour drive through the foothills of the Andes...

Again the outskirts of Quito...

This was Guayaquil airport where I spend a few extra hours care of my friends at Aerogal...

The food here is pretty good. It involves a lot of maize in many different disguises, cooked, roasted, grilled, boiled, in soups etc... Otavalo unfortunately is not blessed with any form of nightlife. There are few, if any bars or clubs. I have been informed that there is some nightlife in Imbarra which is three quarters of an hour up the road by taxi... Can't say I am too bothered by the lack of nightlife, I can manage with a few beers with my meal in Otavalo...

OK, I will post later with some more piccies if the clouds ever lift. On the way from the airport to here we went through the heaviest rainstorm ever. It bucketed down and parts of the road washed away, 'Rainman' strikes again. At some point we were slowly cruising through at least a foot of dirty brown water trying not to get washed down the ravine... Never mind, Mr Carlos got us safely to Otavalo. It has been raining here everyday since I have been here, that seems to be the norm here...

Oh, just a little whinge at my favourite airline, AirPukeKLM... On the way out I had the great fortune to sit right next to a 6 month old baby that managed to exersize her vocal cords for most of the 10 hour flight from Amsterdam to Quito...Lovely... Never mind, I managed to get some sleep as i was wearing industrial strength ear plugs. Mind you, I could still hear the little B^$&$rd....

Cheerio,

Alex.