Otavalo Exploration

Today we toured with a local guide, Ivan, who met us at our hotel and we drove north of the city towards Otavalo. After clearing the busy city area, we drove through a beautiful, mountainous area and saw many local farms – roses are a significant part of local export businesses and there are many beautiful flower stands right off the road.

Along the way we stopped in a small town area called Cayambe and visited a Bizcochos bakery – the best in the area according to Ivan (including his parents bakery where they don’t quite make the sweet biscuit treat as well). After watching the really impressive group of bakers, we sample their bizcochos, queso de oja (cheese wrapped in a large leaf) all with a dulce de leche they make to go with both. The eucalyptus in furnace smelled v. nice!

We drove into Otavalo, stopping at a lake lookout shortly before entering.

We drove through the town with a beautiful, bustling town square and from there made our way into a farming community to meet Claudia who would host us at her home for a prep and cooking experience. She brought out drinks as A welcoming tradition – A slightly fermented (so as to not create alcohol), corn beverage called, chicha.

After introductions – we got straight to work! Shepherd grinding the corn (chuchuca) and Rawlings cleaning the quinoa.

After quite a bit of prep – we visited the pigs to deliver scraps as well as the herb garden to collect what was needed to finish our meal.

And to make our dessert, we needed to make some more corn flour and in doing so, we visited the mill, which happened to also be where the pets (and future dinner) – the guinea pigs “cuy” were hanging out.

We ended up making a very yummy meal:
– Watercress, pea and potato soup to start (made more yummy with a homemade hot sauce)
– Main meal of Quinoa pancakes, chicken, broccoli and sautéed carrots, lupine bean (soaked for 7 days!), radish, avocado and cilantro salad.
– Sweet toasted bread with a syrup flavored with mint and lemon verbena