We are now in tourist shopping paradise and have hopefully satiated our needs for some time to come. It's Saturday, which means that the center of the city is filled with stalls containing all sorts of indigenous handicrafts - ponchos, knitted sweaters, pyjama pants and hats are what we've brought back to our hostel. Though extremely touristy, it's still a lovely market to walk around in, especially to watch all the people going by. Most of the people here are indigenous (Incan? I'm afraid I haven't informed myself as to their origins) and it's fun seeing the mix of new and old; especially the hip-hop guys with Timberlands, baggy jeans and long, braided hair.
However, I'm quite impressed that we've had the energy to walk around the market the whole afternoon, as we went out partaying with Natasha last night. She's moving to China for a semester and was having a goodbye party yesterday, which she very kindly invited us to. It was in a part of Quito which we hadn't seen before, quite fancy, in fact. The night started out with a ride around that part of town on the roof of a truck, complete with cups attached to strings to wear around your neck (god forbid you lose your alcohol), whistles, Ecuadorian flags and music cranked up to the max. Surrounded by all these very Euorpean-looking people (as compared to most of the Ecuadorians we've seen so far, who tend to have some indigenous characteristics), we quickly realized that we were riding around with what are probably the brats (look it up in a Swedish slang dictionary or something) of Ecuador. Though some people waved and honked their horns at us, others were giving us scathing looks from the pavement. We had great fun, however, and blew our whistles until we were completely out of breath.
The bus ride was followed by some clubbing in a VIP area of Club Gia and it felt good do some dancing, which I haven't done for ages. At the end of the night, we were treated to some Puerto Rican reggaeton by Joan & O'Neill (great name, or what) as well as some pretty dirty dancing. All good fun, but a bit much for tired backpackers, and we went home relatively early.
Tomorrow we'll be going back to Quito for a car market and some more sightseeing. And now, it's time for some pineapple and an Ecuadorian concert.
P.S. We have a stalker. Namely, the president of Ecuador. He's been following us all the way to Otavalo, pretending to make a speech to the people. But we know he's after us.
