New Year’s Eve in Ecuador in unique, and Cuenca celebrates it larger than any other Ecuadorian city. For the week leading up to NYE, people make elaborate or simple effigies. Some families manufacture them and sell them to those who don’t want to make their own. On NYE, they write notes about things they want […]
I Can Read Elven! (Plus Gualaceo Market)
We finally got into a local theater tonight to watch The Hobbit. If you are fans of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as we are, then you will love this movie. We saw the 2D version, largely because it was in English with Spanish subtitles, while the 3D version was purely Spanish. Our command […]
Yet Another Unexpected Parade
There are celebrations and parades all over Cuenca this time of year. The trick is finding out where and when they will be ahead of time. There have been many nights that we hear fireworks, step outside and see them glowing from one direction or another. The times and locations vary all over the map, […]
Two Parades, a Party, and a Deluge
Christmas Day was different here than back at home in Berkeley. We started with a parade we knew about (from our earlier trip to the Catholic Archdiocese). While taking a nap (ah… the life of Riley!), we heard a band and ran outside to find another parade going by our front door. Later, we attended […]
800 Floats! 60,000 Participants! What a Parade!!
As the the parade wore on, most of the kids became bored or plain unhappy Today was Pase del Nino Viajero, or Parade of the Traveling Child. It is the largest celebration and parade of the year, taking place on Christmas Eve day each year. All the towns of Ecuador have such a parade, but […]
Procession of the Jesus Statue
This is the statue that is moved from church to church every four days Prior to arriving in Cuenca, we had read in various sources that there were 50, 52 and 55 Catholic churches here. Everyone seemed to have a different number. The actual number turns out to be 67, as evidenced by the official […]
Orchestra Sinfonica de Cuenca
The Cuenca Symphony put on a free Conciertos Navidenos (Christmas Concert) tonight, so we decided to go see them. We had passed the theater many times while walking in the past couple months, but never realized what it was. They were playing at the University theater, about 6 blocks from our apartment. The announcement said […]
We’re Still Here…
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 […]
Everything’s Blurry
1/2 second hand-held experiment of police bike getting ready to lead the running Santas in a 10K race Last week we were invited to the home of Emanuela for dinner and to review her photography. She had commented that she liked my stuff (see www.mindstormphoto.com for mine), but that hers were “at the opposite extreme” […]
40 Years And Still Having Fun
40 years ago today, we drove to Kirkwood Meadows near Lake Tahoe, mounted skis and got married. Kirkwood Meadows was a new ski resort that we had not been to before, so we thought it would be a good place to start our new lives. We didn’t realize ahead of time that Dec 16, 1972 […]
