We had a breakfast of walnut and banana pancakes with maple syrup at the Magic Bean. Tried to hire a car from Ecuacar who tried to rip us off. $390 for 4 days. Budget gave us a Chevrolet Luv for $217 for 4 days. We drove up to the South American Explorers Club to pick up Dad's passport, then headed for Otovalo and the Indian Market. I bought 15 necklaces for S/-20,000 down from S/-30,000. We had the customary chicken soup followed by meat and rice for lunch. A 10 year old boy had kindly guarded our van for us whilst we browsed and ate. We gave him one dollar when we arrived, and another one when he was still there on our return to the van.

Otovalo	Market	Fording a stream

The plan was to drive from Otavalo to Mindo, but we ended up going down some fairly rough tracks to a place called Garcia Moreno. The views along the way were absolutely marvelous. At one stage we descended over 2000m in one go. We drove under a waterfall which fell onto the road. Some time was spent discussing the insurance policy which came with the hire which demands that we pay the first S/-4,000,000 on "death or total destruction".

On the way up to Garcia Moreno, we stopped for a natural break, and, on looking back along the way we'd come, we were lucky enough to see four Andean condors circling in the distance. It is tremendously exciting to see these birds in their natural habitat!
 

Sunset views from above Garcia Moreno

At Garcia Moreno we re-fueled using buckets and a syphon tube, and watched an extemely spectacular sunset before going back down the hill in the dark to Las Cabanas Rio Grande. It was S/-35,000 for one night for three, plus S/-26,000 for dinner and breakfast. The cabins were very good, but there were some silly New Yorkers next door to us. Oli and I took a walk down to the river whilst Dad talked to the American lawyer. We saw some red eyes on the other side of the river at water level. We also saw a toad and an owl (probably) on the way back.