New Year’s Eve in Ecuador is unlike anything we have seen elsewhere in the world. Though muted this year, compared to many pre-COVID years, it was still worth a walk around town to see the creative minds at work.

Every year, families and groups create their own manigotes, which are paper maché dummies in various forms, usually humanoid. These dummies are designed to represent something or someone that the creator wants to leave behind from the Old Year. Families usually pin notes on their person manigotes, making explicit things they want to start the New Year without. In past years, I have seen notes saying things like “liquor” or “unemployment” or “my boss”… or sometimes “my wife (or husband)”…

Given the events of the past couple years, it was not surprising to see how many of the major diorama displays were based upon COVID. Many had COVID-style spikes coming out of various heads, as seen above, or sometimes just the COVID protein itself (upper-left). First place in the annual Amistad Club Cuenca (Friendship Club) Contest was won by a display in El Vergel, which had a Chinese-looking man with a COVID body (upper-right).

Pre-pandemic, there were major manigote displays all around town. As with the Christmas Eve parade though, this year there were far fewer major entries into the annual contest. A large part of this smaller turnout was the very late decision by city officials to allow the manigote contest and displays proceed this year. By the time that decision was made, it was too late for many groups to organize themselves, design a display, raise funds, etc.

The largest display that we saw this year was at El Vergel Park, contained within their basketball court (above). Its theme was Calendario 2022: Return to Normalcy, showing significant events from 2022 that included Covid, the World Cup and Politics. This neighborhood group has won first place in each of the last five competitions.

Inside the basketball court at el Vergel Park was a fascinating collection of manigotes espousing various messages. Though COVID was common, the displays above were mostly of a political nature. JJ, a friend of ours, can be seen hamming it up with Lionel Messi, the Argentine futbol hero in the World Cup (lower-right).

There were still some manigote displays in other parts of town, some of which can be seen above.

Tradition has the manigotes burned at midnight, to leave the old problems behind. We left the scene a bit early this year, but one family had the same thought, and burned their personal dummy with its demons early also (lower-left). In most past years, a large percentage of the businesses showed their own manigotes in front of their stores on New Year’s Eve. This year, we only saw one though (upper-left).

As we walked home, we were captivated by the beautiful animated light shows we saw at two churches around Parque Calderon. Above is a series of images that were shown on the Old Cathedral, at the edge of the park.

Above you can watch a 65 second quick peek from a drone aerial view of the manigote diorama at el Vergel Park, along with videos of the light animation at both churches (Sanctuario Mariano del Carmen de la Asuncion at the Flower Market and Catedral Viejo).

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