Cuenca Independence Day #1

The battle for the independence of Cuenca was held 196 years ago, on November 3, 1820.  Though the battle only lasted one day, in typical Ecuadorian fashion, the celebration lasts three days each year. One of the first events of this year’s celebration was the Desfile Estudiantil, or Student’s Parade.

Most of the students in the one-hour parade appeared to be middle school or high school age, with each school having one to three groups of dancers in various matching costumes.

Here is a 1 minute clip with examples of several of the dancing groups.

There were also a few marching bands and floats in the parade.

After the parade was completed, I walked to another location where another event was being held.  I never could find that other celebration, but did find that the Tranvia (Cuenca’s new light rail train) work was continuing at full pace, regardless of the festivities.  This project has been plagued with problems — mostly of political origin — and the mayor has put the workers on overtime to try and complete it by mid 2017.

We ended the day by attending a show titled “A Night of Comedy and Magic.” We have seen a few magic shows in Cuenca, and they are almost always entertaining.  From the show title, we had expected three magicians performing magic with a touch of comedy.  Unfortunately for us, instead it started with an hour of stand-up comedy, all in Spanish.  The theater was packed with Ecuadorans laughing and clearly enjoying the show, but our Spanish was limited.  We picked up a word here and there, but it came too fast and with too much cultural nuance for us to really appreciate any of the humor.