The celebration, however, is not just one simple day of the year - it's 9 non-stop days of festivities, hence "Quito Days." The fiesta began yesterday afternoon with the first bull fights and guess who arrived at the same time? Here we are reunited (awww):
Jens arrived on our doorstep, back from Peru in one piece, happy but tired, dirty, and covered with chigger bites. I was happy to see him! After a shower and change of clothes he was revived a bit and he, Caleb, and I went off to "La Noche Quiteña" at Caleb's school, Colegio Nuevo Mundo, where we ate "pinchos" (like shish kabob) and corn on the cob with white cheese, and drank "canelazo," a warm sweet cinnamon drink. Some parents were complaining that the canelazo had no rum in it, but Colegio Nuevo Mundo is a smoke-free and alcohol-free place, as was announced periodically during the evening.The school had brought in a traditional band whose music got the younger children dancing, and later a student band played songs that roused up the adolescents. The most popular act was the Vaca Loca (crazy cow), a person who ran among the crowd with a fireworks stick construction the shape of a cow on his head. The thing was lit and shot off fireworks in all directions at the students, faculty, and parents. It was great fun to watch (at a distance)!
Today was the opening parade for Quito Days and it happened to start right around the corner from our house. We watched both the beginning and end of the 6-hour event and especially enjoyed the performers on stilts. One of these is a condor - can you tell? (Click on any of these photos to see an enlarged version.)
Then came the float with the Reina de Quito (Queen of Quito). Can you spot her behind all those great giant masks?
In between watching the beginning and end of the parade, we went on an outing up Pichincha Mountain. In the photo below, Jens has entered by the "Viva Quito" sign to buy our cable car tickets.
In just a few minutes, the cable car took us from 9,680 ft. above sea level to 13,500 feet above sea level. The air was a little thin at that altitude. Can you read the sign below, which encourages people to move slowly and not to run?
We started walking up and around to get various views of the city, Pichincha Mountain, and other landmarks. If you looked closely, you could see the colors of the parade way down below and halfway across the valley. Here Caleb is taking a moment to catch his breath and enjoy the view:
In the picture below, you can see Quito in the valley running long from north (left) to south (right). The second or middle ridge behind the city is Cerro Ilalo, which was our first climb here in Ecuador this fall (see earlier blog).
We saw some fun plants and formations, including this one below. What you see is about a foot of biomass above 8-10 inches of ash that Pichincha Mountain had dumped during one of its many eruptions long ago. The ash has lots of pumice stone and it's all eroding away because it's exposed by a road cut.
All three of us have at one time or another climbed the lower of Pichincha's two peaks, which is called Ruco and was wonderfully visible today. (It's altitude is 15,400 feet.) We were a bit worried when a lost, American young man hiking alone asked the way up the mountain and, in answer to our questions, reported he did not have either water or warm clothing. I told him we'd been snowed or sleeted on twice up on that mountain, but he seemed to think it was just a bit higher than what he was used to in Colorado and he'd just come back down if he encountered any problem. I hope not to read about him in tomorrow's newspaper!
The church in this photo is new since we last were up on Pichincha Mountain in 2007. It was a bit out of place but tastefully done otherwise.As we prepared to descend back into the city, we saw two young men coming up the cable car to do some mountain biking on the way back down. Check it out:
Viva Quito!
-Spee
No comments:
Post a Comment