New Years in Ecuador

Y’all. New Years in Ecuador is crazy interesting! (And sometimes just crazy!) We read about some of the traditions surrounding New Years here and decided to head to a small town to celebrate instead of staying in the capital in hopes of there being a little less chaos. I think our plan worked out well, because there was plenty of craziness here, even with the rain that went on all night!

It seems that perhaps the biggest New Years tradition here in Ecuador is the burning of grievances right at midnight when the New year begins – or at least this is the starting point for the other activities that occur. Don’t take the idea of burning your grievances too lightly in your mind though – it’s not a “write your grievances on a paper and burn it to forget about it” kind of deal, but rather more of a “dress a dummy up like a person you are mad at and set them on fire at midnight” kind of burning of grievances. People make piñatas and masks and sell them in advance for people to put outside their businesses and homes. Here is one store set up selling masks and piñatas:

And here is a business with a dummy all set up and the grievances listed (with additional peoples faces glued on to call them out as well:

The sign translates to “I carry the corruption”

Or how about this huge one with Pablo Escobar (Though you’d think someone would have aired their grievances earlier than just now?)

We think that translates indirectly to something like “money or bullets” (silver or lead)

There are also lots of regular and creepy looking piñatas outside of business, though they weren’t as interesting to get pictures of :). Lots of cartoon characters as well as several creepy clowns (I have a picture of one of those below) and Chucky/other movie killers. Here’s a huge one that we couldn’t figure out who it was:

At midnight, all these guys, big and small, are thrown into the middle of the street and set on fire. If you can’t tell, it was pouring down rain, but that didn’t stop the fires! They doused these guys in gasoline and lighter fluid and every street was shut down because there was a fire every 30 feet or so.

At the same time that these guys are being burned, people everywhere start setting off fireworks. In the street, on the sidewalk, from their hands – young and old. I saw one kid light a firework and throw it at another kid! In this small valley the explosions echoed off the mountains and came from everywhere! I watched people running trying to avoid being hit! It was crazy! Kirk turned to me and said, “This is why we have city ordinances against fireworks.” 😂

Strangely enough, this wasn’t the craziest part of the celebration though! The craziest part were the young men! It is also tradition in Ecuador for the young men to dress in drag to represent the widows of the men being burning that evening 😂. They don women’s clothes, wigs, fake body parts, and take to the streets. They put up road blocks (from what we saw, by dancing in the streets) and don’t move until people give them beer money to drink away their sorrows. It’s not only cars they stop either. Sometimes they circle around an individual walking down the street. As crazy as it was, it was also peaceful in the sense that they only stand in a person’s way- no violence. It’s such a tradition that everyone just goes along with it! It’s impossible to merely be a onlooker here – if you are out and about – you are participating! Here’s a group looking for someone to encircle:

Here’s one of the road blocks we encountered…thankfully, they don’t harass taxis! (Note the giant clown someone made too!)

The guy in the purple wig 😂.

By evening, traffic was basically stopped everywhere.

The smoke in the sky is where someone just shot a firework from the sidewalk.

Also, we haven’t figured out the tradition behind this, but the kids get in on the action too. I think its probably just them mimicking the young men, but also during the day and evening, kids put on costumes of all kinds and trap people until you give them candy or change. Kirk and I got tied up twice (literally!) in a rope. Here’s one group of kids who got us:

Here’s another kid we saw stopping cars using a rope tied to a pole:

It’s like Halloween, but being outside of your house is the equivalent to having your porch light on 😂!

The are other traditions we saw, but I don’t have pictures of them. For example, there are people selling grapes everywhere on the street because tradition says that if you eat 12 grapes at midnight you will have a good year. We got in on this action since were missing out on black eyed peas and cabbage this year :).

It’s also worth noting, when we are talking about currency – the change we handed over when we got caught in the kids rope and didn’t have candy – it was American change. Ecuador uses American currency. It was a little shocking when we first got here and realized we needed our own currency and it’s even more surprising the amount of half dollars and US dollar coins we’ve used daily. If you want to collect half dollars or those liberty lady dollar coins that never seemed to catch on (at least in the south) come to Ecuador!

Overall it was an unforgettable New Years – it even continued on to today. We visited the best known waterfall in the area and saw young men blocking the road, still in drag and a few costumes. In fact, on the way back to Banos, an approximately 8 mile bus ride took an hour and 45 minutes because these guys were blocking the road. Traffic was backed up for miles, but no one seemed to care. Each car gave them money as they drove by!

Even the maps showed everything stopped!

Anyway, that should give you a full enough picture of how we celebrated the New Year! I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the falls. They were huge and beautiful!

Happy New Year!!