¡Viva el Nuevo Año! ¡Viva!

---

I swear it's not true, but a guy in drag has accused me of fathering his child.

It was an interesting New Year's Eve.

Class 2 rapids may not sound like much, but when you're going into them face first it's pretty intense.

We left Yanayacu around 11 AM to spend New Year's Eve in Palmas, the little community between Cosanga and Baeza that does not exist on a map of Ecuador. There's no city hall or central plaza in Las Palmas, it's just a bunch of dairy farms and one zany hostal all along the highway.

We started the day off tubing face first through the rocky Cosanga river. I came in 9th place out of 18. I was just glad I finished with all my teeth and no broken bones.

A bull had been killed for the festivities so we lunched on grilled stake and menudo soup (menudo= everything else from the bull).

Things quieted down until around 7 when the dancing started and the widow appeared.

It is an Ecuatorian tradition to burn dolls representing known people on New Year's Eve. Of course since these 'people' are to be burned there has to be a widow.

Our widow had a mustache.

The widow walked around the gravel dance floor, making eyes at all the guys, carrying her 'baby'. Her baby was a white skinned baby-doll and since I was the only white skinned man around it was quite apparent that I must be the father. The joke lasted all night.

We took a break from dancing around 9PM. We were all served chocolate milk that must have been seconds out of the utter.

As midnight approached the tradition of reading the last will and testaments for the 'people' to be burned began. They were all ridiculous.

10-9-8-7.... And finally after a long day on the river, eating, dancing, drinking, talking we welcomed in the New Year.

It was 12:03.

As all with all things in Ecuador we were late, but it didn't matter, we made the countdown, burned the dolls, hugged each other and went back to dancing. On the dance floor one would call out "¡Viva el Nuevo Año!" and we'd all shout "¡Viva!".


To all who celebrated Chanukah I hope it was a fun 8 days. I lit candles (not exactly a menorah) every night and one night I made some latkahs and sugar cookies. The cookies weren't in the shapes of dreidels like my mom's and there was no sour cream or apple sauce but it was still nice.

Attached are some more photos. Photos from the Amazon start with 'Where I was' and then the last photos, starting with 'living in the clouds' are from Yanayacu.

-Aaron

---