The Mayan calendar has expired, but we are still here. If only those that thought this would end the world would just go jump off a cliff, our national IQ could would experience a nice jump…

We spent the Winter Solstice visiting Saraguro to photograph their solstice celebrations.  We paid for a guide to take us there, but he turned out to be nearly worthless.  For starters, he said we needed two hours to get there, but it was really three.  We arrived in town just as a children’s parade was underway.  We had about five minutes to gather our stuff and grab a couple of shots before we were herded off to the official celebration in a neighboring town (Llincho?  Not really positive of the name of the village).

The Saraguro children’s parade had dozens of kids dressed as Santa

We then rushed off to the ceremony site… only to then be told we were not allowed to take any photographs at all…!?  Huh? We had hired this guide specifically for a photo tour, and he was now telling us we could not take any photos???

After some rather vigorous pressure on the guide, he finally arranged with the local elder that we could photograph the setting up of the next ceremony in a couple hours, but could not photograph the ceremony itself. Though this was still not the outcome intended, at least we weren’t forced to return home empty-handed.

Villiage members arrived in a loose procession, and then entered a Holy circle.

The Holy circle was on a plateau overlooking the valley. Village members not part of the ceremony sat on the surrounding hills to watch.

During the ceremony, kids played nearby, while music was provided by a drum and accordian.

Once the ceremony started, we were kicked out, so headed back to town. Saraguro is a typical Ecuadorian small town, with very little going on.  Due to the Winter Solstice, there was a small parade — as in one float and the entire parade taking just over one minute!

The kids on the float seemed very unhappy to be there, with frowns all around