Carnival in Puerto Quito

(It took Joke 3 months of prodding to make me write this post)

Carnival is a big deal in South America (think Rio de Janeiro) but we celebrated Ecuadorian-style: playing twister with 100 other people in a bus full of smoke, careering around bends with hundred meter drops to one side. Faith is strong in Ecuador as drivers clearly believe in an afterlife (the kind that doesn't involve hot fires and pointy objects). The road was paved but that's a mixed blessing since the bus can build up speed. Whenever we stopped in a small village to pick up new passengers (and play twister) the children would throw water balloons at us. Unfortunately not enough to put out the fire and after 4 hours of torture the bus breathed its last. Thankfully the next bus was slightly less 'dañando'.


When you have to start the Wikipedia page yourself for the town you're visiting then you know you're travelling a little off the beaten track. Puerto Quito, between the coast and Quito, is surrounded by jungle, banana plantations and has it's own party beach beside the river. The carnival celebrations are pretty intense with thousands of people throwing water and paint at each other. Joke proved to be an attractive target much to her displeasure ;-)

All in all it was a fun, adventurous long weekend with our Ecuadorian friends but we were glad to get back safe to Quito, our stomachs were still 'celebrating' carnival for a few more days.

And thou shalt know that my name is the lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee …

Since January, Ecuador has certainly had its share of Mother Nature’s and other people’s wrath. It started with a volcano, went on with floods in February and then in March, there was the political issue of Colombia killing FARC rebels in Ecuadorian territory, thus violating their sovereignty, with a major diplomatic crisis as a result. The end of March, a hole was bestowed upon Quito … more than 80 m deep and with a diameter of about 70 m. Something a caver should be happy with, but if that hole almost took away part of the highway and has been dug out in rather loose soil, that’s scary ...

Around the middle of January Mama Tungurahua, the volcano near Baños, became very active again. We already heard her in action at the beginning of November, but now she was spitting lava! Will - not satisfied with the display of possible fierceness we had had in November - convinced me to go to Baños again the weekend of 19 and 20^th of January. Unfortunately, the three months of bad weather had already started and clouds kept the volcano veiled. We did hear some impressive rumbling and had a bit of a strange encounter with a peasant carrying - as they all do - a machete ... It was a quiet weekend that ended on the Sunday evening with a film “Que tan lejos”, an award winning Ecuadorian creation.

Some more pictures ...

Apart from the volcano and partly because of the rain, January passed by quite unnoticed … Work wasn’t so much fun, Will and I continued our discovery of Quito by going one Sunday to the Parque Metropolitana and another for a long walk to the centro historico, discovering some beautiful cathedrals and a gigantic market and had a fruit tasting evening at the South American Explorers club: achiotillo, cacao, narajilla, pitajaya, babaco, chicle, … to name but a few of the fruits – forgot the names of the others … ;-)

On the 26^th of January we had own, personal, "alternative" Burn's Night supper. I probably shouldn't mention it, cause it is totally haraam for any self-respecting Scot, but we had pasta with sausages that were addressed by Will as the haggis. On the bright side of this, Kai and Karla learned something about scottish culture and we had a very good evening! Oh yes, and instead of whiskey we had Cuba Libre ;-)