Eastern and the holy week (semana santa) is the holiest and most important holiday in Ecuador. In Quito it's celebrated with a huge parade through the narrow streets of the old town, el centro historico.
The parade is held on viernes santo, holy friday, and Quito's town centre turns into a purple mass. Thousands of citizens walk the procession of "Jesús del Gran Poder" (Jesus the Almighty), dressed in purple robes or dressed as Jesus, dragging a huge crucifix made of big tree logs during the whole parade.
When the hundreds of Jesuses walk past you, you see them trembling under the weight of the crosses, some of them even walkin bare footed.. They want to feel and live the same agony Jesus was going through, which they obviously did.....
The parade is really impressive, but it goes on quite slowly and for a long, long, long time.
And being the tallest person there by far (well, not really, as Tessi is taller haha), soon you'll feel a bit trapped by purple dresses and thousands of visitors, which all seem to gaze up to you instead of the parade.. So, after an hour, the two giants at the parade left and made their way to Cotacachi with other members of the Gulliver team.
We had planned a weekend full of sporty activities. But instead it got a weekend full of shopping, some more shopping, eating and feasting.
In other words, awesome.
The first point on our weekend's bucket list was the leather market in Cotacachi. We expected it to be full of stands with thousands of leather jackets and boots and stuff. Well, it was full of stands with thousands of things... But mostly some clothes or food or jewelry. There were some shops directly at the feria (market) selling actual leather wares, but those were more expensive than expected. So after some leather gazing, touching and sniffing, we hopped off to the city center of Cotacachi, which is jammed with beautiful small leather shops.
I guess I tried on every red leather jacked the city could offer me.. but after number 128 I had to realise, my arms were not meant to be short enough for those jackets... shame.
Full of hopes of still finding some things to spend money on, we went to Otavallo...
oooooh Otavallo.. a heaven for shoppers and souvenir gazers.
Jammed with fabrics, art, handmade silver jewelry, alpaca hoodies and souvenirs, tourists and Ecuadorian melt into one mass of crazy shoppers. Fun, Fun, Fun!
My eyes brightened up, my hands got sweaty, my heartbeat raced like a technobeat, and my knees trembled, as I was just happy to shoot myself into some bargaining and money spending fun!
Writing and thus thinking back to this very special moment, there still appears a smile on my face.
There wouldn't be enough time on earth for telling you what I bought, so I'll move on to the next day, which included my second favorite hobby... Eating.
After having a small breakfast at our hostel we got ready to get the best breakfast our tongues will ever taste - el Café de la vaca.
After sitting down and ordering, your table gets filled with one deliciousness after the other. First, wooden plates with a divine hump of cheese for each one of us, followed by huge vases of fresh, selfmade juices, a basket full of fresh bread, croissants and mouthwatering biszcochos, an exquisite homemade "mora"-marmalade and to make an excellent breakfast complete, a steamy casserole of delicate scrambled eggs, refined with tomatoes and herbs, and topped with a layer of baked ham.
And what else is there to do after such a delighting feast than lay down on the grass and enjoy the sun.....
Semana Santa, me gustas tú.
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