December Festivities

December was already an especially fun month for our family, with Swedish, German, and US holidays plus a birthday, and now we have an Ecuadorian tradition or two to add to the mix.

It's heaven to be 7 - Roald Dahl

Look! St. Nikolaus found our shoes at the equator too!

St. Lucia morning: Hard to recreate Swedish
 ambiance in bright Equatorial morning light!

Ecuadorians celebrate Novena, the 9 days leading up to Christmas, in true Ecua style with parades, music, costumes and fireworks.  At first we raced outside to join the festivities, but honestly after 2 or 3 went by our house each day, it came to the point where someone inside would just casually mention - another parade is going by, and others would respond, oh, ok, which was surprising because fireworks were exploding on our roof and you could barely hear a word inside thanks to the speakers blaring outside. We couldn't get the sound off of Derk's cell phone video, but this short clip gives you a little feeling for the parades.  Promise, Niko's not in a war zone, just surrounded by Christmas zeal.

The school's enthusiasm for the 'season' was no exception, with weeks' worth of practice sessions leading up to their annual holiday program.  Niko thought his teacher was asking him if he had seen Shrek.  Si, si, he responded eagerly, only to find out 2 weeks later that he had to BE Shrek in the class performance.  We ran around 3 different cities trying to find the costume.  Next Kaia's teacher informed us 3 days before the show that Kaia had to be dressed as a gallina (chicken).  Hmmm, your guess on how well she took that.  Finally, the little gringos were asked to dress up as elves for another piece.  One woman I spoke with said her daughter had to rent 4 different costumes for her school's concert, so we apparently made it through fairly easily.  Between parades and school performances, the costume rental stores in even the smallest towns were hopping

We were thrilled to share Christmas and Novena festivities with Heidi's and Stefan's three teenagers, David, Evan, and Maren who spent 10 days exploring with us. We loved having them around, with lots of time to hear their thoughts on life.  Plus they convinced us that thermal springs, hikes around volcanoes, and visits to the Otavalo market did indeed make up for the fact that we were in the dark ages without internet for 6 days straight!  David, age 12, is staying with us for January and February, and will attend Niko and Kaia's school (with better internet as part of the deal).

Plaza de los Ponchos-Otavalo Market

Christmas Eve, complete with Paella

Papallacta Thermal Springs

Leaving the Amazon Basin - Paramo near continental divide

The high Andes en route to Papallacta

Lake Cuicocha

Hike near Lago San Pablo and the Condor Park (where we saw cool owls but no condors) -- Otavalo

No, that's not a bug
 next to that flower!

Peguche Falls near Otavalo

And wrapping up December, of course, is New Years Eve which is celebrated with equal vigor.  There are more videos on this blog than I expected, and I think it's because our pictures don't manage to capture the sheer energy and noise in the same way as videos do.  To bring in the New Year, people build life size puppets - mu~necos - which they place on the sidewalks in front of their homes and businesses.  Neighbors walk around admiring the puppets, which are complete with pathetic life histories and wills.  At midnight, the puppets are all burned in the street in a symbolic effort to burn away failure and regrets, and make room for hope and optimism in the new year (basically the whole city smells like burning tires).  This is all set against a backdrop of more parades, music, and fireworks throughout the day.

Kaia's classmate Anais at the Plaza