Ñamarín

The name baffles the tongue, upon reading it for the first time.  And once you figure out how to say it, you might ask yourself, just what is Ñamarín?

To call it a village might not be quite accurate, because most villages I've been to, as tiny as they may have been, were built more densely than here.  But the collection of homes scattered around the hills outside the community of Saraguro, in the province of Loja, have a palpable unity greater than what can be achieved by simply building houses close together.

In Ñamarín, many of the men, young and old, still wear their black hair long.  They usually have it tied back into a braid, and covered with a high, black, narrow-rimmed hat not unlike one your grandfather might have worn.  Like many of the men living in and around Saraguro, they also wear the distinctive black pants, the legs of which not quite reaching the ankles of the fellow wearing them.  More often than not, a blue dress shirt, covered by a black vest - and on colder days, a black jacket - completes the Saraguro man's traditional garb.

That the men who identify themselves culturally as indigenous Saraguro maintain their traditional clothing is, in and of itself, a feature that speaks of the kinship felt amongst the people of the area.  Even the chola cuencana, the archetypal country woman to be found in and around Cuenca, with her unmistakable colorful pleated skirt, white flowing blouse and white "Panama" hat, has no easily identifiable male counterpart.  At least not as far as his clothes are concerned.

The Saraguro woman, for her part, is also easily identified: by her long black skirt, often embroidered along the bottom, by her usually white, long sleeved blouse, and topped off with, like the men of her community, what we norteamericanos might think of as a Prohibition-era black fedora.

Long before I visited Ñamarín for the first time, I had become acquainted with Saraguro culture primarily because of their distinctive clothing.  As I made my obligatory visit to Vilcabamba as a newbie to Ecuador, I recall having noticed the traditional clothing of the people as we rolled along a dusty road of the town of Saraguro itself.  Later, having made the connection with that particular style of indigenous dress, I began to pick up on it as I wandered around the streets of Cuenca.

It's truly incredible how in our minds, we make such clear distinctions amongst groups of people based purely on their clothes.  A police officer, a doctor, a military man, or a clergyman is instantly labeled as such by what he (or she) is wearing.  In Ecuador, ostensibly since centuries ago, groups of people have been long identified by how they dress.  Even today, a trained eye could trace any traditionally-dressed individual back to her specific region strictly by recognizing her distinctive outfit.  Interestingly, in the cities as well there is an unmistakable connection between the uniforms of working professionals and which bank or other institution they happen to work at, as much as there is between the mobs of school children spilling off the sidewalks at lunchtime, and their corresponding educational center.

The sociologist would be better suited than I at analyzing what it is about Ecuadorian culture that has rendered country and city folk alike to be so notably tuned in to what might be referred to as "the culture of the uniform."  Who knows, maybe someday I'll hit the streets of Cuenca with a camera and do my best to document it myself.

As usual, I digress.  Because the real purpose of this month's message to you all is to share our trip last November to the home of José and Juana Cartuche.

It is largely thanks to the hospitality of this couple that the name Ñamarín means anything to someone like me, who would have otherwise sped by it on a bus heading south to more popular destinations, too fast to notice the sign with the puzzling name.

Several years ago, as José explained to me, a peace corps volunteer came to work in his community.  She lived with his family, and her work - and her stay with them in general - helped them to formulate their plan to become hosts for travelers, and to build the infrastructure to make a stay here attractive to people from outside their community.

Today, they have built Inti Samana Wasi, which is to say in Quichua, "the place where the sun rests."

And, as José said to us, his guests are like the sun, who come to his home to rest briefly, before continuing on their journey.

This heartfelt explanation came to us at the beginning of our two-night stay, and as we spent time with them, as they shared with us all the meals that Juana prepared, they both proceeded to show us the heart behind the name they've given to their lodging.

When I had spoken with José on the phone to let him know we'd be arriving, he told us that he'd meet us down at the highway, winding through the valley below Ñamarín.  Not really knowing what he would look like, I remember sitting on the always-crowded bus heading to Loja, barreling noisily around the hills, when I happened to glance out the window across the aisle to see the flicker of a man's face, there, and then gone.

That had to be him!  So we quickly gathered up our things, ourselves, our baby, as we hollered to the driver to stop the bus.  Our fellow passengers helpfully joined in the litany of voices, and a man in the front seat pounded on the door separating the driver's cabin from the rest of the bus.  A lurching stop, the stumbling of the passengers standing in the aisle, a flurry of feet and baggage, and we were soon deposited on the dusty roadside.

And there, downhill, the man stood stoically on the embankment, still waiting.  We made our way back down the road, met the gentleman who was indeed to be our host for the weekend, and made our way up the steep hill into Ñamarín.  José informed us on the walk to his home that another couple would be staying that weekend as well, and that we might know them.  Sure enough, an hour after our arrival, Rachel, a new teacher at CEDEI who I'd just met the month before, and her boyfriend Nelson from the tropical town of Mindo outside of Quito, came walking into the Cartuche's little patio where we were hanging out.

The patio, framed on three sides by the small buildings that make up their home and lodging, and on the fourth by José's organic garden, is set up with nice wooden benches and two hammocks, a perfect place to relax and read in the sun.  The garden, a mix of herbs and vegetables, supplies Juana's kitchen with fresh ingredients year-round, thanks to Ecuador's high altitude formula of predictable sun, rain and mild temperatures throughout the calendar year.

During meals, as we all sat around the wide wooden table, being served soup ahead of big steaming main courses, all of us guests spoke prolifically about whatever came to mind.  José would eat, and listen, and Juana would smile and ask us if we wanted more.  As he was occasionally compelled to do so, José would ask us a question, or provide his opinion, or share a story.  But usually, he just listened to us, as I began to gather he must do with most of his guests.  In this way, beyond the travels that he mentioned he had taken to such places as La Paz, Bolivia, he gleaned what be of other parts of the world, and the chattering people that came from them.

And in this way, in his silence, I cultivated my respect for this generous member of the community from which he came.  From time to time, he would suggest a walk that we could take from his house to various nearby destinations.  The first walk we took, by far the most leisurely, led us along the main road through the community of Ñamarín itself, and the beautiful mountains that frame it, and shelter it.


We observed that the majority of the homes in the area were built from adobe bricks, and topped with the traditional red ceramic roofing shingles known as tejas.  To see an adobe home in other parts of Ecuador that I've visited, even in the countryside, is usually to gaze upon an old, old farmhouse.  But here, many of these adobe buildings were clearly newer, and some still under construction.  It was refreshing to see a place where natural building methods were still seen as a perfectly logical way to make a home.

During our walk, Nancy also pointed out how there was no loud music playing, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise on a walk along a country lane, one would think.  But go to the countryside around Cuenca, for example, and you'll see where many families from the city have bought a cheap slice of the outskirts of town and built themselves a concrete mansion or perhaps a simple country villa.  Either way, such families love to go to these weekend vacation homes and have themselves an all-day party, with loud music to go along with it.

In Ñamarín, this was fortunately not the case.  These homes were far too distant from any city to make for a regular weekend getaway.  The people are here because this is where they live, and their weekend pastimes bear few resemblances to your typical Ecuadorian city dweller on a country excursion.  Granted, we still saw groups of teenagers playing soccer or volleyball, much as you would around Cuenca.  But these kids were distinct from their urban counterparts in the noticeable lack of accompanying party music, as much as they were for their black pants and ponytails.

The next morning over breakfast, don José recommended another hike to us, up to a little waterfall.  It was easy to find, and we'd easily be there and back before lunch, he assured us.  So we made our way up there, Nancy, Tamia, and I, along with our new friends Rachel and Nelson.  This was Tamia's first real trip out of town, and our first time taking her for a walk on a steep trail.  But Nancy had rigged up a handy sling out of a long scarf made from durable fabric, and just like that, our then three-month-old was along for the ride.

Before we took this trip to Ñamarín, Nancy and I knew that we'd have many road trips in our future.  Not only for our own enjoyment, but also to Guayaquil, for example, where we'd be taking care of official documents for our dual-citizen child.  We thought a short trip like this one would let us know how Tamia would do on a bus ride, and just being outside of her ordinary routine.  Plus, we decided that it would be a good chance to get her accustomed to such an experience.  Fortunately, our little daughter doesn't seem to mind being on the road at all, as a look back a couple of months, at some of our more recent trips, will show.

The picture to the left, incidentally, also features the edge of an open cave that overlooks the steep, deep valley issuing forth from the little waterfall only a few steps beyond Nancy's shoulder.  Before running down the valley and into the rushing river a thousand feet or so below where we stood, it passed through a small, natural basin which would make for a handy place to bathe.

We had to imagine that at one time, many people must have done just that.  Here one would have had the very fortunate combination of a high, wide cave for ample shelter, a source of fresh water for drinking, an accompanying natural pool, and the protection of a steep, narrow valley, well visible from the cave itself.  It wouldn't have been a bad place to spend some time in the days before indoor plumbing.

The thought crossed our minds to take a dip ourselves in that little pool, until we tested the waters with our hands.  Maybe it would warm up more as the day went on, but at 10 am, it was cold, cold, cold.  The heated shower back at José and Juana's would be just fine.

And, after some time hanging around the cave and waterfall, and trying out a few dead-end trails, back to the Inti Samana Wasi we went.  We had another delicious meal, we talked José's ears off once again, and he kindly recommended yet another trail to hike, this one far up into the mountainside that Ñamarín was settled upon.  Rachel and Nelson got a head start on us, as we spent some time relaxing after lunch.  And after awhile we three headed out once again, into the community and then, up above it.

Our hike took us quickly out of the community and up into the countryside.  Like many mountain hikes in Ecuador, this one took us from small patches of forest, through high mountain grazing pastures, and also to the inevitable potato patch at unlikely altitudes.  While the trees were nothing like old growth, nor did they seem to be native species to my layman's eye, the sense that we had reached the edge of a wide expanse of secluded mountains took hold on us, as we looked out onto uninterrupted views of wooded hillsides all around.

It is, upon facing a sight like this, that some deep-seated recess of my psyche  comes forth, filling my mind with the fantastic realization that I could wander endlessly into the scenery.  Some primal craving for wilderness left unsatisfied by too many years in cities, which provokes the urge to let civilization fall away behind me and lose myself in the mountains' embrace.

If I ever do give in fully to such callings, may I at least do so with a good head start in the early morning.  In this particular case, with dusk on the way and my young family at my side, the archetypal lure of the woodlands wasn't too hard to dispel.  Its legacy that evening was, during the walk back down, my vocal insistence on a return trip with sleeping bags, tent and camping stove some day in the future.

With some luck, such a trip might be possible.  Later, over dinner, as I further articulated my wonder at the beautiful sights at the top of the hill far above us, José told me that he could arrange for guided multi-day excursions either on foot or horseback into those very open spaces we had witnessed.  It sure would be fun.  If any of you out there are interested, let me know.  With some outside influence like that, I could be pretty easily persuaded.

That night, our hosts had arranged for a youth dance troupe, who were learning some interpretations of traditional Saraguro ritual dances, to present some of what they had learned for us.  After dark, many young people from the community began arriving at our lodging, in successive waves.  While many of the kids were too shy to say much to us before or after, while they were dancing they were clearly having a good time and being themselves.

In all, they presented several dances for us that evening, with don José himself providing explanations of the significance of various movements and concepts that were represented in what we saw.  The dance you see to the left, as he told us, takes place in a circular pattern to illustrate of the cyclical nature of life, and of time in general, according to the indigenous Andean worldview.

I recall hearing a similar interpretation from a guide, regarding some symbols I had seen on old Aztec ruins outside of Oaxaca, Mexico.  Apparently the circular, cyclical nature of life was not lost on that particular group of indigenous Americans either.  But then, anyone living close to the Earth would begin to pick up on such things, with time and thought enough given over to them.  For those engaged fully in the rhythms of the Earth, it must emanate naturally in all sorts of creative expressions.  It's only those of us who find ourselves separated by degrees from natural cycles who need telling, or at least reminding from time to time by people kind enough to share.

After the performance, one of the dancers learned that our daughter shared her name, and got a chance to hold her.  We learned that in this community, Tamia was a very popular name.  Which makes sense, being that we had borrowed it from Quichua for her to use.

We shared a warm thanks with all of the dancers, who went back to being shy and smiling.  They made a pretty quick departure after their performance, and soon after we were in bed for the last time of our short visit.

 

It's worth mentioning that like most of the houses in Ñamarín, the Cartuche family has built their home and lodging with adobe bricks, and made a point to make the walls double thick.  This design lends itself to appealingly deep windowsills, rooms which stay cool on sunny days and warm on chilly nights, and a general sense of being cozy inside the ample walls with natural stucco finish. 

So needless to say, we slept well during our two nights under warm blankets and thick earthy insulation, and awoke each morning to sunny skies.

We shared another delicious breakfast with our hosts, and all too soon we were saying our goodbyes, and making promises to return.  Indeed, we still hope to pay this couple and their fine community another visit.  If you're in Ecuador or intend to be, you might like to do the same!

Manabí

We recently found ourselves with a couple of weeks of vacation, and knowing that our free time had come when most of the rest of Ecuador was still at work before Holy Week, we decided to head down to the beach and beat the crowds.

I honestly haven't spent too much time on Ecuador's coast.  But when I have made my way down from the Sierra, I've never been disappointed by the Province of Manabí.  Our last trip there was to the beach towns of Puerto Lopez and Ayampe, and I've got fond memories of both places.  There's always the temptation to go back to a place you know you love, but then again, Manabí is a huge province, and it boasts just about a third of Ecuador's entire coastline.  We had gotten to know only the southernmost tip of what Manabí had to offer, and so we chose to make our way much further north this time around.

Of course, in addition to our destination being several thousand feet below Cuenca's high valley, it's many, many kilometers to the north as well.  Add that to the fact that there is nothing like a direct road connecting Cuenca and any of the beach towns we had in mind, and you've got yourself a lengthy road trip.  And unless you've got a car, which we don't, that means you're taking the bus.

Bus trips around Ecuador have been a main feature of much of the blogging that you, my loyal readers, have read plenty about.  My wife Nancy, myself, and at this point, even our baby girl, we've all been on our share of long bus rides.  Seeing as how we enjoy traveling around quite a bit, we were glad to learn that our daughter could handle being on the bus for many hours without causing much fuss.  Until our most recent trip, however, all of our bus trips had been around the Sierra, and we were a little concerned that the heat and humidity of Ecuador's coast might present some problems for her that weren't present in the cooler mountain rides we'd taken before.

I'm happy to report, however, that our daughter, despite sweating far more than either Nancy or I, seemed to mind the many, many sweltering hours of stop and go travel far less than we did.  In fact, this trip revealed far more about my own limitations as a traveler than our daughter's.

You see, any trip to the coast from Cuenca necessarily implies a dramatic drop in elevation.  This particular trip took us through Guayaquil, and the most direct route from Cuenca to Guayaquil first takes you from Cuenca's modest, springlike climate, then up into Cajas, with weather often feeling much more like a day in February for my readers in the US.  The Cajas leg of the trip also features the most stomach-churning twists and turns, which ultimately lead you winding down, inevitably through cloud-forest conditions (read: heavy fog) before plunging you into the eternal Summer of the coast.

All in all, we're talking about about an 8000 foot change in elevation in a short time.  More than enough to get your ears popping.  In my case, however, I was fighting off the last few days of a head cold, and something about the congestion in my sinuses also meant that my ears were far less able to release pressure than normal.  The fact that our ears, nose and throat are all connected is well-known, but little had I ever had to think about it until I came to realization that I had a pressure building in my inner ear, and all the ear-popping tricks I knew weren't working.  With nowhere to go, the pressure quickly became acute, until a loud and painful pop finally sounded in my left ear.  The right one kept on aching dully until we got to Guayaquil, about 90 minutes after the descent.  That also had the effect of everything sounding as though I had my palms pressed firmly over my ears.  I heard my own voice mostly through the vibration it caused in my own head, and only the lower frequencies of the outside world seemed to make it through.

That night in Guayaquil, as the pressure in my cranium slowly matched that of the world around me, my ears regained their normal capacity for hearing.  Or at least, my right one did.  I'm no doctor, but I suspect that I did some damage to my left eardrum when it made that loud popping sound, because for the next three days all noise entering my left ear sounded as if I were hearing it through a blown subwoofer.  Periodically throughout those days, as my ears would naturally pop, I felt like I was mildly re-injuring my already damaged ear, and it would go from sounding closer to normal, to going back to that blown-out, rattling sensation.  The good news is, before the end of the trip my hearing had returned to normal.  And, I know now not to take any trips that mean big altitude changes when I've got a stuffy head.

Once in Guayaquil, our next stop was Manta.  Home to a former US military base and located five hours north of big, sprawling Guayaquil, the map revealed a long, straight stretch of highway leading there, interrupted only by the small city of Portoviejo.  The trip out of Guayaquil took us near the edge of the port district, where metal railroad boxcars were stacked up several stories high, waiting for their next trip on a big cargo ship.  We also caught a glimpse of Guayaquil's less-seemly neighborhoods, consisting of concrete block and wooden shack homes on leafy hillsides, garbage spilling down ravines along the city's unincorporated extremes.

Outside of the city, we were treated at last to the tropical countryside:

I think Ecuador's low, coastal interior is one of the most beautiful and diverse ecosystems you can find.  There are wetlands, mountains, deserts and cloud forests and jungles all within a few kilometers of one another.  Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to spend as much time exploring the national parks of Ecuador's coast as much as I would like, but once Tamia can begin carrying her own weight, maybe we can start checking them out a little more.  Until then, some glimpses from the roadside will have to do.

The mix of open countryside and small agricultural communities you see here are the hallmarks of a ride through Manabí, as much as are the many roadside stops in countless dusty towns where the locals hop on the bus briefly to sell.  Water, juice, bread.  Corviche, pan de yuca, empanadas.  And big, juicy oranges, with the tops sliced off and peeled down to the white albedo, which are made for tidily squeezing every last drop of the sweet juice into your mouth.  Yum!

Of course, each stop means an ebb in the cool breeze which blows in constantly through the windows while the bus is moving, and the moment the bus loses momentum, the heat and humidity instantly creep in, reminding you that you're sitting at sea level, right on the Earth's sweltering middle.  A ten minute stop in a small town, with tasty fresh fruit to keep you cool and refreshed, isn't so bad.  But at the grimy bus terminal of Portoviejo, where our bus stopped inexplicably for more than an hour at midday, the wait began to take it's toll on our patience.  With little outside of the bus besides a seedy bus station, dusty metal vending booths and some dusty palm trees scattered around the black asphalt, we chose to wait out the layover in our seats.




The long wait didn't seem to bother our little daughter, as sweaty and sticky as she was.  Nancy and I on the other hand, knowing we were only an hour from Manta once we got back on the road, were both taken aback by this long stop.  The never-ending line of vendors moving along the bus aisle went gradually from a source of welcome refreshments to an annoying array of people to say "no, gracias" to.

My Catholic upbringing has instilled in me the sense that there is a place called Purgatory where we atone for our sins.  In a departure from the traditional belief, I've come to the conclusion that Purgatory is a place on Earth, and if you can endure long stopovers with grace and keep your cool throughout the experience, you have paid some penance for your past transgressions.

Finally the bus got back on the road, and it didn't feel like long before we were in Manta.

Manta has a population of around 200,000 people, and its economy is driven largely by its status as a port city.  Tuna fishing, canning and shipping is a big part of its revenue, although more and more people are beginning to come for the wide and long beaches that lie on either side of the port district.  Including us.  Our main destination wasn't Manta but Canoa, which laid still further north, but after five hours on a bus, we decided it would be nice to get a hotel near the beach and see what Manta was all about.

So we got off the bus and made our way out of the small but bustling bus terminal.  It turned out we were just a couple of blocks away from Manta's Malecón, which refers to a seaside path made for walking and enjoying some shade and the nice views.  In this case, however, we had arrived in Manta just in time for the renovation of their Malecón, and so it wasn't as pleasant of a walk as it could have been.  Nevertheless, there are still a number of parks to be found along the sea, along with some informational maps to help you keep your bearings.  While these maps were conspicuously lacking the "You are here" feature, we were, after some triangulation, able to determine that we were a modest walk from the nicer of Manta's two beaches.

Manta, unlike many of Ecuador's smaller beach towns, doesn't seem to have too many hotels right along the sea, nor were there signs advertising lodging, nor people trying to convince you that their hotel was the best option.  Once we found our way to the beach, with all our bags, we still hadn't seen one hotel.  At this point we were ready to find a place, any place, to stay for the night.  Preferably in time to get down to the beach before sundown and enjoy a few hours before going to bed, waking up and making the push up to Canoa.

In the end, we picked a random street to wander up, in hopes that some accommodations would present themselves.  Luckily, we did find a hotel, albeit a far nicer one than was really necessary for our purposes.  The rooms were essentially vacation apartments, complete with a small but functional kitchen.  There was even a private garage down below for the security of your personal transportation.  Not the rustic cabin setting I was accustomed to staying in when I came to the beach, and at $30 the price was a little high, considering we wouldn't be there long enough to take advantage of many of the hotel's comforts.  But, after so many hours on the bus, we were happy to have found a comfortable place to stay, and since we planned on leaving on an early bus out of Manta the next morning, the fact that breakfast on the patio would be included was a convenient bonus.

We unpacked, relaxed for a little while, and then headed down to the beach.  Halfway down the stairs I remembered something I wanted from the room, and on my way back down I saw that Nancy and Tamia had found a nice place to sit in the grass and wait for me:

We ended up not being too far from the beach after all, and once there we found it to be almost devoid of tourists.  While there was some development along the shore, it didn't encroach excessively onto the sand, and there were many spaces set aside for gardens and palm trees.  We got there in time to roam the beach from end to end, and then we found a nice place to watch the sun go down.

There are few things better than watching the sunset on a tropical beach.  Before you churns the vast sea, above, the changing sky, and behind you, a continent that holds more mysteries than known places.  If you have a woman next to you who loves you as much as you love her, and perhaps a small child seeing such a scene for the first time in her young life, you could truly want for little more.

And then the sun goes down, and it gets dark.  An old man plays guitar in the sand and sings pasillos.   After a few songs, a younger man selling smokes and candy pretends to steal coins from his overturned hat, and then gives him a cigarette.  The music is over, and we recall the strip of restaurants further up the beach.



A seafood dinner washed down with guanabana juice and a cold beer.  One last walk along rows of palm trees, sand and tropical flowers.  And the walk uphill to our hotel, shower, and cozy bed.

The next morning we awoke in time for a big breakfast to be served on the second story patio of our hotel, and then we packed and made our way back to the bus terminal.  We bought tickets for a bus departing in an hour, and found one of the nearby parks we'd passed the day before, to watch how a morning in Manta unfolded.

We were surprised to see dozens of men hanging out in the park, seemingly with nothing to do.  The demographic was mid thirties to mid forties, male, able bodied, and idle.  Were they truly unemployed, or would they be heading off to work sometime later?  Manta seemed like a bustling enough city that there would be jobs to go around, but something about the stance and camaraderie amongst the circles of fellows standing around the park implied that they were geared up for a long day of not much to do.

Well, one can speculate and people watch for only so long when you've got a new beach town to go to.  We soon got on the bus, and were on our way to Canoa, which lay further still up the coast of Manabí, four hours by bus.  Including another stop over in Portoviejo.  Seriously?  It seemed as if every bus traveling along the central coast of Ecuador was destined for an extended wait in this town.  I'm sure it's a nice enough place, but from the bus terminal it didn't look like it, and if it does have anything worthwhile to offer the traveler, we weren't too curious to find out.

Beyond Portoviejo was a truly beautiful stretch of green hills, big trees and wetlands.  Our trip took us away from the coastline as the road wound through hilly countryside, and back again near the town of San Vicente, a fishing community with big beaches and small houses.  Beyond the palm-lined beaches and fishing boats, one can see across the calm Bahía de Caraquez, to a narrow peninsula from which rises a popular tourist town named for the bay itself.  Our guide book said it was a nice place to visit and a common destination for beach-bound Quiteños.

The fact that we were now much closer to distant Quito than we were to Cuenca weighed heavily on our travel-weary minds.  As our four hour trip was stretching into five hours and counting, and as our bus settled into a prolonged stop in San Vicente, as it had in many other towns before it, and as the town of Bahía de Caraquez sparkled invitingly from across the bay, I was sorely tempted to suggest that we hop off the bus and stick out the remainder of our trip here in this quiet fishing town.  After all, we'd heard you could get a boat over to Bahía for only a couple of dollars, and we'd be there in 20 minutes. 

As if reading my mind - or more likely, the weary looks on our faces - the ticket collector on the bus assured us that we were almost in Canoa: "Ya mismo llegamos." I'd come to learn that ya mismo can be interpreted as a duration of seconds or much, much longer.  But before we could vacillate our way off the bus, the engine cranked up and we were on our way.  And indeed, 15 minutes later we were pulling onto the sandy streets of Canoa.

Our original plan was to stay in Canoa for a day, and then head back down to Bahía de Caraquez and stay there as well.  But our one day in Canoa stretched into more.  We found a hotel with a small pool with nice, warm water:

We played cards and watched the sea at a beachside café:

We took an afternoon on the beach and drank beers under a canopy:














 And otherwise, we just enjoyed being in a lazy beach town.  Canoa is a surfer's haven, and the locals are content to collect what cash they can from the young travelers that flock from the world around to their little town.  After so many hours on a bus, we were in no hurry to leave such an easy place to be.

I originally chose Ecuador over other countries I had considered as places to work, largely because I liked the idea of a mix of mountains, Amazon, and beaches.  I've never had a home close to the ocean in my life; as the crow flies, Cuenca is by far as close as I've ever lived to a coastline.  Having lived here now for three years and been to the beach a grand total of four times, I can say with certainty that we're still far enough away to make our beachgoing ventures few and far between.  So when we do get there, it's nice to have no urgency to get back.

When the time to go finally came, and we walked over to the town's one bus stop, we were happily surprised that a bus was pulling up just as we got there.  And, as it turned out, it was a nice one.  Air-conditioned, spacious seats, and amazingly, even though the bus was pretty full as it pulled in to Canoa, there were two open seats for us as we climbed on board.  We had planned to hit Bahía de Caraquez on the way home, but I suppose we'd gotten our fill of the beach already, and having found seats on a cool, comfy bus heading all the way to Guayaquil, we couldn't bring ourselves to get off it as it reached San Vicente a few minutes later.  That little town on the bay will have to wait for another time.

It took us three days of travel to make our way up to Canoa at the beginning of our trip, but we made the push home in one day of dedicated marathon bus-hopping.  So it was that we were having breakfast on the beach in the morning in the shade of leafy almond trees, and carry-out pizza in our own house for a late night dinner, high and cool in Cuenca, far from the surfers, the ocean breeze, and the hot, tropical sun.  The trip itself was a blur of long naps, Portoviejo, homemade snacks from the coast, the sprawl of Guayaquil, and an unexpected tire change in the crisp air of Cajas.

As we went to sleep that night, snuggled up into the warm bliss that is our own bed after so many nights of hotel rooms, it was hard to believe that in the morning I had awoken early and watched the sun rise from a hammock a stone's throw from the Pacific.  But that's how it had been.  And until we go back again, those are the kinds of thoughts that cross my mind when I think about Manabí.

Life is a Carnaval

As those of you who read this blog regularly have probably interpreted by now, the theme lately has been one of holidays.  That's because for a few months straight, it seems as though the holidays celebrated in Ecuador come one after another.  Carnaval, perhaps the wildest of them all, is amongst the last in the string of festivities, before the devoutest of Ecuadorians settle into a prolonged period of subdued reflection, and the rest just go back to business as usual.

To call Carnaval a religious holiday doesn't quite explain it.  Of course, since some version of Carnaval is expressed in so many countries around the world, and each with its own long history, it defies a tidy explanation.  Ecuador's own modern manifestation of Carnaval can be traced back to a fusion of indigenous and Spanish traditions, although today's revelers have taken it into yet other directions.  On the indigenous side of the story, various local cultures celebrated some version of what the Inca would have called the Pawkar Raymi, which is to say, the festival of the blossoming.  Such celebrations featured the ritual throwing of water and flowers, in order to invoke the primal energy of flowering and rebirth.

The Spanish already had their own Carnaval celebrations, which happened to coincide with the indigenous festival.  That's really no coincidence, when you consider the fact that holidays around the world have taken shape around the many, universally recognized lunar and solar events every year.  European Carnaval is of course an event which takes place prior to Lent.  Before beginning forty days of personal sacrifice symbolic of Jesus' own tribulations and crucifixion, Europeans wanted to have a good time.  So they began a tradition unto itself, where open revelry became as ensconced in the calendar as Easter did.  Easter falls always after the Spring Equinox, and Jesus' death and resurrection represented the ultimate Passover lamb, that Jewish holiday which, in turn, is tied with the Spring Equinox, and is itself representative of the rebirth inherent of the beginning of Springtime.

Here in the Andes, the local cultures too were able to recognize the mystery of the Spring Equinox and celebrated accordingly, and when the Spanish and indigenous cultures collided, so too did their holidays, fusing together much as the people.  Today Latin America is unified in part by its mestizo culture and heritage, and also by holidays drawing from both sides of the Atlantic.

What does that mean for Carnaval in Ecuador today?  Mestizo teens, hurling water balloons.  At each other, and often, at strangers.  And while Carnaval is technically observed beginning the Friday before Ash Wednesday, the water balloons start flying not long after New Year's Day, and reach a crescendo the day before Lent begins.  The final days of Carnaval find many Ecuadorians on the street, openly wielding water hoses in front of their houses, barrels and buckets of water raining down from terraces above, and drive-by water balloon attacks.  Young women and obvious foreigners seem to be preferred targets.  If you're blonde or a woman, that means you'd better watch out, and have a good sense of humor, every time you're outside, for several weeks.  Even the best sense of humor can begin to wear down after several unexpected dowsings, and an afternoon at work at a language institute employing several dozen foreigners begins to look pretty soggy during the last days before the Carnaval vacation.

This year, like the previous two years I've spent in Cuenca, left me fortunately dry.  But then, I've been thoughtful about how I get around during the first months of the new year.  No bike rides, first of all.  Those wait until Lent.  A walk downtown is best avoided, and if you do need to go downtown, you'd best walk towards the flow of traffic, and better yet, on the driver's side of the street.  You see, the driver, being occupied with driving, can't very well toss a balloon at you.  Furthermore, choose a route without many residential homes, where kids like to hang out on the 2nd or 3rd story terraces.  Does this sound excessive?  Perhaps, but not if you'd rather stay dry.  Anything short of that and you'll get hit, at least a few times.  I guess in total, I've been hit by one water balloon in Cuenca, during the one bike trip I chose to take last year.

That's not to say I haven't been a target.  Upon leaving Cuenca, my luck always seems to run out.  There was, for example, the case of my first Carnaval trip in Ecuador.  That left my friends and I all covered in water and spray foam, as you'll see towards the bottom of the link.  Last year we opted to stick around and celebrate with Nancy's family, which culminated in a family reunion in Biblián, roasted guinea pig dinner, and the ritual smearing of dry corn starch all over everybody's hair.

"Why corn starch?" you may ask. This, too, seems rooted in indigenous tradition, where the taita inti, or father sun, was chosen at the beginning of each Pawkar Raymi.  Today, they instead refer to taita carnaval, and anyone can be Father Carnaval if they've got white hair from all the corn starch.  If you've got a beard like me, you're even more of a target.  Best of all, after you get the white powder thrown in your face, you're supposed to say "thank you."

This year, we decided to venture out of Cuenca yet again, heading up to the community of Ambato and the surrounds.  Ambato is distinct in its Carnaval celebrations for at least two reasons.  First, throwing water is prohibited.  That sounded good to me.  Second, and even more intriguing, was their famous parade, known as the Fiesta de las flores y las frutas.

Before we got to Ambato, we'd had quite a few arrangements to make.  This year, Carnaval weekend and Valentine's Day happened to coincide, which left many of the hotels in the area full, far in advance.  In fact, of the several hotels in Ambato we tried to book, all were full but one, which had doubled its prices and demanded a minimum two night stay and a 50% deposit to be made in their bank account three days before arriving.  We didn't like those conditions very much, so we got a fresh list of hotels in the area from Nancy's sister, who works at a travel agency.  The first place on the list that we called indeed had vacancies, and put us down for a night with no further strings attached. 

So Nancy, Tamia and I got on a bus and headed for Ambato.  30 minutes from our destination, we thought it would be a good idea to call ahead and get the exact location.  Which revealed that our hotel was not in Ambato at all, but in Baños de Ambato, a different community altogether.  That put us in a dilemma.  On one hand, Baños is a nice place, and buses went back and forth along the 40 minute route between towns very frequently.  On the other hand, we had planned to spend our time between Ambato and a few small communities on the other side of town from Baños.

In travel, and in life in general, we can rarely predict with any accuracy what our experiences are going to be like until they actually unfold.  Attempting to do so will often leave us disappointed, and worse, blind to potential opportunities that arise, but which we never foresaw.  Traveling, then, is often an exercise in being flexible, and open to new experiences.  We hadn't planned to stay in Baños, but after a few minutes of weighing our options from our bus seats, we opted to stay there after all with the hotel we had reserved, rather than wander into a city unknown to both of us, with no place to stay.  When we arrived in Baños, we discovered that our hotel was located literally across the street from the bus station, run by teenagers, and with lousy rooms but very nice views:

Nancy and I had spontaneously spent our first weekend together in Baños, and so now, two years later, it was fitting that we return there spontaneously with our baby girl and wander its streets yet again.  It definitely brought back lots of nice memories for us both, and despite the Carnaval revelry, it ended up being a relaxing time for us to spend another weekend there.

Punctuating our visit to Baños of course was the main purpose of our trip, the Fiesta de las flores y las frutas.  The morning after our arrival, we woke up early and got back on a bus to Ambato.  A quick city bus ride downtown left us a couple of blocks from the epicenter of the celebration, and a long line of people in the middle of the street.

"Why the line of people?" we asked a stranger at the end of the line.
"To cross the street," she told us.

Well, it must be worth crossing a street like that, and so we did.  And this is the sight that greeted us:

We didn't know what the Fiesta had in store for us yet, but we were sure by now that it was worth seeing, judging from the dense throngs of people packed into the long, wide avenue.  Every sidewalk was packed, and above, so were all the balconies and rooftops.  Along the side streets, people had parked their trucks, and people were packed onto them as well.  The street itself, as far as you could see in either direction, was filled with walkers, including ourselves, all trying to find a place to sit down.

We chose to go right, and look for a place.  Any open seat we came across on the sidewalks was already claimed.  After going down about ten blocks, we could see the first float off in the distance, coming our way.  And in front of it was a line of police officers, who formed a wall and drove all those left in the street forward.  We had little choice than to head back the way we had come, and with a stroke of luck, we found a couple of empty seats.  Or that is to say, a man found us, and then sold them to us for $2 each.  Apparently, each store owner along this street has the coveted opportunity to sell sidewalk space in front of his shop, and after seeing the number of people who were now facing the ultimatum of having a seat reserved or getting off the street altogether, two dollars seemed like a fair price to pay.  We also happened to be on the side of the street which still received the morning shade, and there was a bucket of iced beer for sale right behind us.  Here's a glimpse from within the crowd, which may help to illustrate our good fortune in finding a nice place to sit:

And so, happy with our location and view to the street, we settled in with a cold beer and enjoyed the show:

Here you see one of many floats featured in the parade, most of which followed the recurring theme of a beautiful woman throwing flowers or soft fruits into the crowd, accompanied by a float constructed almost entirely of flowers and fruits.  Here was featured a donkey made of delicious purple capulies and orange uvillas, and standing on a sort of cake made from black olives, as far as I can tell.


Between each float came a retinue of dancers, each with their own costumes:

The last photo is el diablo huma, whose history can also be traced back to indigenous traditions.  His image pertains more to those of harvest than of rebirth, but nonetheless, we saw plenty of diablo humas during the Carnaval weekend.

And, a glimpse at a couple more floats:

 

The parade was lots of fun.  One thing which characterizes Ecuadorian celebrations for me is the outpouring of creativity and community support.  Like the viejos of New Year's Eve, like the parades of the Day of the Innocents, Ambato's fiesta de las flores y las frutas are celebrations where you'll see few tourists, as well.  These are events that are produced by Ecuadorians, not with the intent of commercializing their traditions for the sake of tourist dollars, but simply as an event which truly represent local expressions of culture.  While Carnaval has its roots in old traditions, this fiesta represents a newer turn, and one that clearly has lots of community support.  

I was also impressed by the sense of order throughout the parade.  From the line of people entering the street rather than a chaotic mob, to the police calmly ensuring random people didn't intermingle with the dancers and floats, we were treated to clear, uninterrupted views of the parade from our comfortable, bleacher-style seating.  When events run smoothly, we often don't think much about how they would look without good planning, but in this case it was clear that many of the details of the event were carefully thought out beforehand.

Once the parade ended, in came vendors with their carts of snacks and drinks, and in came the carioca.  Carioca is a company which, as far as I could gather, is based in Greece.  They produce all kinds of children's products, mostly school products, but also canned, spray foam.  As often happens with brand names, the name for a popular product becomes the household name for the item itself, and the word carioca in Ecuador means "spray foam."  Another modern spin on Carnaval, carioca is an increasingly popular way for people to play Carnaval, rivaling or surpassing water balloons in some areas as the delivery system of choice for Carnaval mayhem.  

As we got on the bus out of Ambato's downtown, Nancy took a direct hit, a thick dose of foam right on the backside.  Then, from our bus seats, we witnessed the ensuing carioca-fueled Carnaval games.  We were fortunate that carioca was absent from the parade itself, but as soon as the parade ended, the carioca was on, like donkey kong.

Back in Baños it was more of the same, although the general law of the land there seemed to dictate that if you have a can of carioca, you only strike others with their own cans in hand.  This sort of honor among thieves was respectable, and it allowed our little family to relax in the park in Baños with no fear of random foam attacks.  If there is a lack of photos to back up these stories, that's because I still wasn't willing to take the chance of exposing a camera to 10 year olds wielding cans of foam.  So you'll have to take my word for it.

The one moment I can document was on a chiva ride we took to Baños' scenic overlook.  A chiva is a colorful, open-air bus, and these played salsa music at high volume as we careened up the mountainside.  While the carioca was normally reserved for those actively participating in Carnaval, chiva passengers were considered active participants, and I had a seat right on the edge of the bus, so there was no avoiding the madness that ensued.  We received the brunt of the onslaught at the top of the hill, where the road was lined with chiva buses about 20 in a row, and the narrow dirt road meant that the only way out was to pass by them all.  Here's our only glimpse of the action: 

 

Outside of this unfortunate incident, we stayed clear from the carioca, even as it went flying all around us.  Actually, while I wasn't happy about getting sprayed at the time, our experience on the chiva wasn't so bad.  I've got my opinions about the toxic, artificial chemicals inherent in that foamy stuff, as well as what must happen with all the empty cans after the holiday is over, and I'm sure you can guess what those opinions are.  Moreover, given the choice, I'd rather take a water balloon in the back of the head than to have that weird foam in my hair like a heavy dosage of mousse.  But when you deliberately choose to go to a place with a reputation for using that stuff, you have to accept it for what it is, I suppose.  

At least in the moment.  But such excess leads one to think about how so many holidays are marked by some sort of overindulgence, from Christmas gift-giving to Thanksgiving gorging.  Is there a way for people to engage in the creative urge that holidays inspire, without putting even more burden on the planet?  In between our sacred days are the times for reflecting on holiday expressions, both symbolic and real, that can truly sanctify the turning Earth, which is, directly or indirectly, the inspiration for all our holy moments.

March of the Innocents

The times around the New Year in Ecuador are marked by so many parades, festivals and celebrations.  Pase del Niño, El Año Viejo and Carnaval all seem to come one after another.  There's one more party that ought to be added to that list, one which many visitors to Cuenca will miss if they aren't in the right place at the right time.

Fortunately for me, I happened to stumble upon it the first year I was here, having no idea what I had found.  One January evening, intending only to meet my friends after dinner, I walked down the Bajada del Padron from my old apartment downtown, towards the river Tomebamba.  And there, across the wide expanse of Avenida Solano, were countless teenagers all dressed up like the denizens of hell.  Hmm.  Demons and ghosts, horns and pitchforks, and everyone dressed in black.  Among them, floats rolled along, as big and ornate as those you would see for the Pase del Niño.  But instead of the homages to the baby Jesus that are famously paraded at Christmas, these were garish and infernal, like a Macy's Halloween Day parade.

Only later did I find out that I had witnessed the Day of the Innocents.  At the time, I was happy enough knowing that I wasn't the only one confused by my surroundings.  I somehow ran into my friends, who were as astonished as I was by the improbable spectacle, and together we wandered up and down the boulevard to see more.  Avenida Solano, ordinarily a main thoroughfare of Cuenca's car traffic, had transformed into a mix of parade, concert and county fair.  While the avenue itself was given over to the parading masses of young people and their accompanying devilish floats, the tree-lined boulevard along the center was jammed with spectators and vendors of cotton candy, fried pastries and marinated skewers of meat.  The crowd itself was dressed up as well, every other person wearing what would be Halloween costumes in the US.  Also, oddly enough, many teenage boys had gotten a hold of girl's uniforms from any of the countless high schools in Cuenca, and were walking the avenue shamelessly in their stuffed bras.

Along the edges of several intersections, big stages had been set up, and from them, live music at high volume lended itself to the milieu.  Add to all this a throng of spectators so thick that navigating through it was impossible without pushing your way through the tangle of glow-in-the-dark horns, latex monster masks and schoolgirl outfits, and you've got yourself a party, albeit a weird one.

That particular year, we were satisfied after a lap around the main concentration of people, floats, and costumes, and went on our way.  Later on, I got myself informed on exactly what it was I had witnessed.  The Day of the Innocents, commemorating the day in which King Herod ordered all children under the age of two to be killed, has manifested in Cuenca into a real non sequitur of a celebration.  Originally a sort of April Fool's celebration in which people played pranks on one another, it has lost much of its emphasis in many parts of Ecuador.  In Cuenca, however, it has become a big parade.  The trick-playing is still a part of it, with men dressed in drag, spontaneously kissing other men who aren't in costume.  I haven't gotten a good explanation for the costumes, but one's imagination can fill in the blanks.  My own has led me to believe that King Herod's wicked act is manifested in the Halloween-style portrayal of those many innocent souls all lost in some sort of limbo.

Last year, rain got the party off to a late start, and after some time waiting under an umbrella, I gave up looking for a repeat of my previous experience and went home.  2010, however, found our little family ready for the big event.  Avenida Solano being on my current walk home, I was able to see that the party was already getting started on my way back from work.  At the house, Nancy had put together a patchwork of costumes for each of us, including my sister-in-law Lourdes, who works in our neighborhood, and our little niece Giomara.

Here they were, in their respective outfits.  Breaking a bit from the tradition, perhaps, our daughter was a lion, Lourdes a giraffe, and Giomara a drop of water.  My wife, for her part, was someone in a curly, black wig.  Were she to have turned around for this picture, you would have seen the true brunt of her costume, namely the sign taped to her back:  respeto al peatón.  Which is to say, respect the pedestrian.  Fortunately, tonight was a night for walking, as this normally busy street was closed to all but foot traffic and floats.  My own costume fit more tidily into the traditional spectrum, which I suppose I'll include further along.





As their route home on the bus was currently blocked by the big party in the street, Luli and Giomi accompanied us until the other side of the celebration.  Along the way we got our first taste of this year's parade.

 
This year's parade had a decidedly multicultural theme, with the demonic of two years ago giving way to pagan traditions from around the world.

And of course, no Ecuadorian parade would be complete without some sort of political statement:

What does it mean?  As usual, I have no idea.  Parading around the ring for la lucha libre were scantily clad women representing various newspapers around Ecuador, if that gives any insight.  Beyond that, your interpretation is as good as mine.


Día de los inocentes, taking place just days after el año viejo, is just as full of larger-than-life displays as New Year's Eve (which, incidently, is highlighted in the next entry down.  Or, for your convenience, here).  Where does all the energy come from?  Within a week you can see two massive outbursts of the creative urge, one spread around the city and the other concentrated in a parade along just a few city blocks.  Part of the explanation comes from the prizes awarded.  For both this and el año viejo, there is a cash prize of a quantity unknown to me.  But for the sheer size, and number of entries, one must assume a return on the investment is possible.

Amazing what a little endowment for the arts can do.  Maybe only one or two win, but dozens play, all for the public's entertainment.  And, much like my experience of two years before, there was plenty of public around.  For several blocks, walking was a true exercise in patience and tenacity.  It seemed as though half the city had crammed into this boulevard, and however wide it is, it was still full and overflowing.  It makes one wonder what happens to all the little plastic cups and paper plates after the party's over.  And for that matter, the floats themselves.  For the New Year's effigies, at least, the tradition itself solves much of the clean-up issue.  Burn it!  But in the case of the Innocents, there's no fiery sublimation in store for the pagan figures, and once they've been paraded around, one must assume their day in the sun will have come and gone.

But don't despair.  A closer look at many of these floats reveals that they are made of mere cardboard!  For all their showy colors, they will, by virtue of their humble biodegradability, go back from whence they came.

And so it was for us, in a metaphorical stretch.  Many a picture had been taken, many a presentation seen.  We witnessed everything from ancient cultures at the height of their respective glories, to Michael Jackson (not pictured) dancing with Carlos Crespi.  We even ate some street food.  After all of that, I was ready to walk home, take off the itchy false beard, and call it a night.  So far, the new year is off to a good start!

Burn the old year down

I was glancing at the calendar yesterday and realizing that we're already in the home stretch of January.  In scarcely a week it will be February and 2010 will be well underway.

Here in Ecuador, where the sun rises and sets at virtually the same time all year, and the only distinguishable concept of seasonal change is the greater or lesser chance of rain, it's easy to lose track of the passage of time.  January, April, July, October, these are all months that have, for me and most Northerners, historically meant drastically different weather, clothes, activities and sights.  But now that I'm working on three years here along the Earth's waistline, these months are quickly becoming just names.  It's January?  A casual walk around town today or six months from now look and feel virtually the same for me.  Every day means a chance of sunshine in the morning and a chance of rain in the afternoon.  And every day is, no matter where you live, a chance to tread thoughtlessly along your routine or a chance to do something new.

There are those individuals and groups of people who believe, much as I do, that every day is sacred, and that holidays aren't really any holier than any other day.  I reflect on that even more here, where today is as much like it was on this precise day of 2008 as it is to a day in March, or June, or August.  Our concept of a calendar is the only thing, after all, that lends some sense of familiarity to July 21 of this year to the day of my birth, 32 years ago.  If we didn't play Leap Year tricks with the month of February to balance the calendar with the Earth's actual revolution around the Sun, by now my birthday would have slipped into a time more like the beginning of August, and by the end of my life, my birthday would be inching towards autumn. 

Despite all of that thought, or perhaps due to it, I have come to love one particular Ecuadorian holiday more and more, each year that I observe it.  Because, in an irreverently ceremonial way that for me knocks the wind out of any codgy or self-important significance, Ecuadorians take everything from the past, put it on display for a few hours, lump it all into a paint-and-paper-mache pile, and at precisely midnight on New Year's Eve, burn it.

Bueno.  As you can see, this moment was clearly not midnight.  And, upon closer examination of the effigies here being burned, they are not paper mache.  I guess the New Year is also a good excuse to get rid of some old clothes.  This particular scene took place on the terrace of CEDEI, my place of work.  Through the smoke you can see a man from accounting, his face belying the general sentiment one feels upon watching things burn.  We all enjoy that, somehow, deep down.

In the background you can see the ring of 8 chilean pines growing at the center of Parque Calderón, and to the right, the blue domes of the new cathedral and the symbol of Cuenca.

While these effigies burn, everyone exchanges New Year's greetings.  One of the things I respect the most about Ecuadorians is how inclusively they treat one another.  Upon entering or leaving a circle of friends, acquaintances and unknowns, each person will make a point to shake hands or kiss the cheek of every man, woman or child present.  That's true even in a party with dozens of people, which can take some dedication, and several minutes to do.  Not ideal if you're trying to make a quiet exit, I suppose.  And which also leads us to the riddle:

If 9 Ecuadorians are saying goodbye and each going their separate ways, how many individual hand shakes/ cheek kisses take place?  That is to say, each person says goodbye to every other person, once and only once.  The first correct answer wins you the prize of your choice, within the limitations of my personal income, and international shipping.

While we're on the subject of my CEDEI New Year's experience, lets take a moment to look at what New Year's traditions mean in Ecuador.  You might be wondering, for example, what the significance of these effigies is all about.  In the case of the CEDEI party, there were two effigies, each of which represented one of my coworkers.

Here is Eduardo, with his respective effigy.  Can you see the resemblance?

These effigies represent the old year, and by extension, the year to come.  Those individuals and events, both beloved and despised, get equal treatment.  When a hated figure gets burned, all the negativity of surrounding it goes up in smoke, and we all symbolically choose to forget and let go of it, with the hopes of a different unfolding of events in the coming year.  Likewise, a loved one is burned in order to erase any negativity from the previous year for that person, as a blessing and toast for the new year.

Many people make their own effigies, fashioning humanesque figures out of old clothes, balled up newspaper and cheap plastic masks.  That was the case here at CEDEI, and as you will see, with my wife's family.  But as with any celebration, there are those who make a business of it.

Stacks of pre-fab, $1 masks, with bodies stacked up behind ranging in prices, starting at $1.  So for as little as $2 you can get your effigy right on the roadside, with a mask loosely resembling your preferred victim/honored guest, ready to burn.  (As a side note, my observations have revealed that the masks are usually removed just before the effigy is set on fire.)

But, if you're really dedicated to the occasion and want to burn something more memorable, there are much more costly effigies to be bought, upwards of $200 in value.  Here are a few images of the higher end effigies on the market:

I think this is supposed to be Presidente Correa's brother...

And so, much as we from the US roam usually-empty lots seeking the perfect, freshly cut pine tree small enough to squeeze into our living rooms for the Christmas holiday, on New Year's Eve you'll find Ecuadorians out looking for the perfect symbol to set on fire, come midnight.

But, as I mentioned before, many people, and often entire families and neighborhoods, prefer to fashion their own effigies.  The quality and size of these range from life-size to much, much bigger.  And, since an organization awards a prize to the best creations on display, some of these effigies become part of much larger, allegorical panoramas, on profile all afternoon.  That is, until the magical New Year's hour when they, like all New Year's effigies must, get lumped unceremoniously into a heap, doused with some flammable liquid, and get torched

Nancy, Tamia and I planned to spend New Year's with her family, who would be making an effigy of their own.  But we agreed to take a detour downtown and see what kinds of displays were going up.  My curiosity had been piqued on my way home after the CEDEI burning, by sights like this:

 

Remembering my first New Year's experience in downtown Cuenca, I was eager to see just how this big head would be incorporated into the larger display.  And indeed, once we made it back downtown, this tell-tale, disembodied head had found itself atop a larger-than-life body:

If you don't recognize it, it's now resting atop the grey-suited gentleman on the center right.  I'll confess I wasn't able to read between the lines very well on this presentation, but my overall experience has told me that these kinds of panoramas typically paint a tongue-in-cheek critique of Ecuador's political scene.  Even a brief look at this small country's politics reveals an often chaotic process of governance, and every year, much as in any country, after all, there are quite a few controversial political decisions.  All of this provides plenty of fodder for the locals to poke fun at.

In other cities, it's often been left to graffiti artists to portray political criticism on the street in a creative way.  Here in Cuenca, I'll admit that the quotidian street art is pretty lackluster, in general.  There are some notable exceptions, but the overwhelming majority consists usually of black paint, a one sentence message, and little or no poetry or style involved in the presentation.  But perhaps that is made up for to some extent by the explosion of creativity that unfolds in the streets on this day.

Much later in the night, Nancy, baby and I emerged once again into the city - now piled into the family Volkwagen with the rest of the Macas family - to see how some other displays had shaped up throughout the evening.  We had to drive around for awhile to find anything very interesting, something that her family lamented.  Apparently in previous years, there had been much more community involvement in their own neighborhood.  Even in my own two years of prior experience, I found this year's presentations to be fewer and further between than the first, glorious experience I had.  I have a theory regarding that, but you'll have to wait for the next blog to find out why.

In the meantime, I will say that we did stumble upon an interesting presentation, one that demonstrated that it isn't just politics, but life in general, which can be the target for some of these creations:

I don't quite know what it all means.  But here there is featured a live actor amidst the paper mache surrounds, roasting two paper mache guinea pigs.  This particular display included a number of live actors who contributed to the show, mainly in the form of a paper mache marching band.  The overall theme appeared to be a sort of traveling carnival, with a number of sideshows and 4H-style animal husbandry.  I'll leave you to paint your own mental pictures.  I can't give away all my photos for free, after all.

As I may have hinted at before, I like my Ecuadorian New Year's panoramas to be on the sinister side.  After all, if you choose a negative theme to put on display, and knowing that people will experience them in the dark night, let's really take them to the dark side.  Perhaps this is also connected to my experiences with another pagan fire ritual that I love.  Zozobra, in Santa Fe.








The last display that I stumbled upon was, in fact, just two blocks from the home of Nancy's parents, and it might have been my favorite.  It wasn't the most beautiful or well assembled, but it did best represent the gory sort of imagery that I'm talking about:

It also well illustrated the political overtones that any good New Year's panorama ought to, in my opinion.  If you can't make out the details, here is a bus, having just run down a poor, innocent (notice the white clothing) pedestrian who was just trying to use the crosswalk like any good peatón should.  For some background information, 2009 saw the arrival of "intelligent" traffic lights in Cuenca.  They are supposed to measure the quantity of traffic and vary the length of each green light accordingly.  They also feature a crosswalk signal, complete with a chirping sound for the blind.  The city also launched a campaign of painting new crosswalks along many of downtown's main intersections, and even sent out university students to regulate the flow of motorized and foot traffic, aiming to make pedestrians cross at and only at the crosswalks, and to prevent cars from stopping in the middle of the crosswalk at a redlight, as often happens.

Predictably, nothing has really changed.  Pedestrians still cross the street wherever and whenever there is a break in the traffic.  Cars still stop in the crosswalk.  And, occasionally the crosswalk signals aren't even in sync with the actual traffic lights, which could very well send a pedestrian out into moving traffic.

Much as happened to our poor effigy pictured above.  The sign on the dead, bloodied walker says "CHUCH," which I intepret as Chucha! emulating the Cuencano tendency to clip the final vowel (which is, incidently, a publicly accepted expletive hailing back to an indigenous word invoking the female anatomy.)  Here I reckon the final vowel was clipped even more abruptly by the sudden end of his life.

Hanging at the top is another sign, explaining the theme of the display: "Traffic Lights. Most intelligent.  Made in China."  Haha.  The underlying idea that I took away from the scene is that being in a hurry kills people.  In fact, in the United States, cars kill more people every year than guns do.  So this year, let's heed the message. Take it easy, and try not to go very frequently to places we can't walk to, my friends.

Let's end our New Year's story back at the Macas family home.  Nancy's father prefers to make the effigy a family event, and so each year they get together and commemorate a family member in effigy form.  This year it was the youngest generation who was represented.  Our own daughter Tamia, and our 6 year old niece Giomara.  Tamia was a bit of an afterthought, in fact, so she took shape as two pieces of paper cut into humanesque form, stapled together, colored, and then stuffed with newspaper.  Giomara took a more typical shape of old clothes stuffed with newspaper and topped with a head made from balled-up papers.  Black yarn was glued onto the head, a face drawn on the front, and listo.

Here are the two honored guests of the evening, next to their effigies:

 At the midnight hour:

 

And, for those who are curious, here's how the bus -themed party down the street turned out.

 Looks like fun.  Complete with a story-high blaze and what from a distance looks like pagan fire dancing.

Our own celebrations were more mellow.  We each ate our twelve grapes in order to receive twelve years of good luck ahead.  We raised a toast to the new generation honored with the recent fire.  And, it wasn't long before Nancy and I decided to make our way home with Tamia.

So it was that our daughter witnessed what New Year's is for the first time.  I'm glad that the images before her eyes were ones that might, over the years, reveal to her the same layers of meaning that they are beginning to reveal to me.  In each effigy and subsequent fire is revealed a tradition both ancient and modern, pagan and secular, non-assuming and grandiose.  It's a symbol of human creative energy, always renewing itself by the simultaneous remembering and shedding of the past.