Christmas involved weeks of street parades, firecrackers, and rain. On Christmas eve there was a pretty impressive towercastlethingy made entirely of flammable rope, bamboo and what we thought were strings of Christmas lights. All of it connected to various points of fireworks that was lit by a dude’s cigarette, exploding out, creating unique shapes or forms. Those strings we thought were lights were….. not lights. They were the fuse. Post-cigarette lighting of the not-lights was a bike with rotating wheels and other spinning objects with fireworks flying in all directions onto a crowd of onlookers. At one point the flames and burnt remains were raining on us and people were running away to avoid getting burned. It was coming down like snow. Terrifying, scalding, smelly, ashy snow. Roger ended up opening up an umbrella to protect us, including a kid who literally huddled next to Roger to escape the firestorm. In the end we left with only a few tiny holes in our clothes, and of course a laughing and frightening experience.
Before Christmas itself, for the week leading up to it every neighbourhood in town has their own march/parade with a band and firecrackers, fireworks, candles, you name it. When our area’s turn came up we thought “hey let’s go check it out”. So our neighbours handed us candles and we ended up marching along with them through the ‘hood, through town, around Parque Matriz, and eventually to the cathedral where we parted ways. We were on our way to grab a bite. Let’s check it out we thought. What could happen?
We ended up parading in town, taking our turns carrying Jesus and eventually got dinner nearly an hour later. We marched with beer in our backpacks.
Carrying the baby Jesus.
With beer.
Año Viejo
New Years in Ecuador is quite interesting. There is the tradition of creating an effigy and placing it in front of your home and burning lots of shit in the streets with this effigy. Some are dummies that have masks of people, devils, animals or clowns. It can get political as well, some with signs protesting or simply funny jokes. We made one ourselves a dummy dressed in Roger’s office clothes with a curious looking Joker/devil mask we had found in Otavalo. Sadly we don’t have pics/video, but our dogs had a bit of a scare with it, thinking it was a real person leaning against the wall. In the end the point of this tradition is to literally burn the old year out of your life and start the new year sweeping the ashes and remains of the last year.
So we decided to go for a walk in town to see the effigy’s or maybe try and catch a street party. Unfortunately there was torrential rain, maybe not so unfortunate because we ended up trying to get out of the rain into what we thought was a bar just a block away from where we live, we noticed some friends from Bar Fauno were leaving as we walked by. We were happily surprised to learn that this was a “non bar”. Basically someone’s home, with a bar, tables, a stage for a band, but no sales of alcohol. You simply bring your own booze to share which we had preemptively brought along in a backpack full of both Pilsener and our own experiments. It was awesome. We got to share our beer, get some feedback, make some new friends, and dance a little. The band played and the rain outside was a distant thought.
Just before midnight we ran back home in the storm and grabbed our gazeebo and took it outside so we could ring in the new years with a big bon fire outside of our place on the street and burn our own effigy. Roger had prepared the wood and put it in our wheelbarrow so we started the fire and wheeled it out to the street in the rain. Since the wood was dry it had no trouble lighting and off it went! A gigantic large fire outside of our property. So here we are, with a giant fire on the street outside our gate, beers in our hands and a cop car pulls up. Roger’s all “are we in trouble?”.
The cop rolls down his window and asked “got some matches?”.
Malena had asked/translated to Roger and as he laughed about their request she realized there was a box in her pocket. After handing it over, cop asked how much he owes us for the matches, and Malena just waved and said “Nada” and “Happy New Years”.
Learning to live with street dogs
This past year it’s been interesting learning how to navigate around town, to avoid certain dog packs or areas where running may be a little more dangerous. What we’ve learned is that most street dogs are tame and scared and hardly ever attack a person, but they will fight with each other. It’s the people-owned dogs behinds gates that are barking their lungs out that one has to beware of. Any chance they have to escape their entrapment they will take it, and somehow those are the ones that seem to be the most aggressive. In the end, we’ve made a ton of doggy friends, feeding some (winning them over with treats) or yelling and standing up to others when they get snarly at our dogs. We’ve fed dogs that looked emaciated, until they were healthy enough to keep going. We’ve also surprised a few of those large snarly dogs (ones that hate our dogs) in a good way. Roger approaching them as they growl and then look so confused as he tosses them some meat off of a bbq’d pincho.
Puppy in Trouble
The latest dog story which happened in December (we were jumping on and off buses trying to find wood lots along the main highway) when we happened to see a scared stray puppy who might have been hit crossing the highway, scared and hiding under a pickup stopped at a light out in the middle lane. A man from the truck got out and tried to shoo the pup away but it was terrified so Roger joined and managed to pull it out and get it off the highway to safety. While we thought about what vet to take it to, the puppy slipped out of our hands and ran away into town. Sadly we chased it but lost sight of it. Hoping the dog wasn’t too injured and is doing okay.
We did find the wood we needed. The lot we ended up at was near Ibarra and run by a family from the coast, who were a joy to meet. They joked and made fun of each other constantly, were perpetually smiling, laughing and goofing around and still didn’t lose any fingers in the saws. It was a fun spending time with them and an enjoyable end to a busy stressful scary day of work, bus-hopping, and puppy-saving.
El Capitán still follows us
So remember El Capitan? Crazy dog owned by some bar owners down the road from us? He still follows us and it’s insane. We were at a tiny burger place on Bolivar and he stormed the doors not only there but several other businesses around it trying to find us. He crashed into the bar Fauno next door and scared the hell out of the guests and staff, even marching into their kitchen like he was on a mission. Meanwhile we were eating next door no idea he was terrorizing the neighbours. He tagged along when we left and he even followed us into the grocery store when we tried to lose him. Being the holidays there was a parade nearby and he got distracted by other dogs. We immediately turned and ran away hoping to lose him. We made our way into Fauno but their door was locked even though they were open, and they told us about this crazy huge scary beast dog they had to lock out! Yah we felt bad he was looking for us. We’ve never fed him, but he’s obsessed with us and follows us everywhere. He’s adorable in a dumb scary kind of way.
Squeezing in some fun time
We’ve been here in Ecuador for almost a year but it seems we haven’t had time to do much fun stuff for ourselves or explore. So when we finally decided to go camping in December we went all out. We decided to spend one night at Lagunas Mojanda. We took a taxi up a 17km rocky road and arrived to rainy weather. We were forced pitch a tent along the side of a mud road on the edge of the caldera lake. The space was literally wide enough for the tent! Glad it wasn’t windy, although it would have been nice if it wasn’t raining most of the time. There was a gap in the storm where we managed to get a fire going to cook some dinner, and enjoy our own IPA we brought in thermoses. At one point we hiked down the grassy slope hoping to reach the edge of the water, but it was really bushy, trees were dense and any more steps down we would end up in a swamp. It was great, and we already imagined how much more awesome it would be if our furry companions came with us.
Sometimes life get’s really busy, but we have to keep reminding ourselves why we are even here to begin with. We wanted to start a business where we would share our passion of exploration, beer drinking and adventure. This turned into a year of stress, late nights working, frustration from unreliable workers, constant overseeing of things getting done the way we want it, taking buses in and out of town to get the material we are looking for, not knowing who to trust. We’re not even including all the joys of dealing with government offices for permits and Roger’s Visa. We forgot that this whole process, the process of living should be enjoyed. Doesn’t matter what phase we are in life, we can fall in love with nature again and again. Whether it’s sitting in the sun and feeling the warmth while enjoying an ice cream, or sitting under a gazeebo with a hot chocolate while there is a torrential rainfall, or sitting under a moonlight with a whisky flask, life is beautiful.
