I knew I should have written about my Carnaval experience way sooner, but the recovery time is like a week and then life happened, so here I am writing about it now. Carnaval was SO much fun. We went to the Capital of Carnaval in Ecuador which is Guaranda. It was my second time there and I had breezed through once before.
Guaranda is a quaint Sierrian city with great weather (well if you don't mind the cold), nice people and safe streets :)
We went to visit the volunteer that lives there and she certainly was the hostess with the mostess!
I can't remember the order of operations but I'll tell you in general how it went down.
I feel like we rolled up off the bus and immediately were out the door for the first desfile (parade). I had heard that Carnaval was about water, flour, eggs...wait...it sounds like I'm giving you all a recipe...ahaha...well this is how they celebrate. People were throwing ice cold water from the balconies or just running up to people with buckets and getting you at close range. Que Frio!! Eggs were cracked over the head (hey it's a good for your hair), wiping flour all over our faces, and most importantly the cans of spray foam! It was an all out love war :)
I guess there are no friends at Carnaval. Definitely the people I went with ended up being the people giving me face fulls of foam and directing anyone with a bucket of ice cold water to run in MY direction. The first day we went hard. Laughing, "playing" Carnaval and being introduced to the enemy of my life....Pajaro Azul!
Pajaro Azul, which means "Blue Bird" in English is the drink of Guaranda. It's a hard hitting clear colored blue hued caña drink. When we asked how it was made one lady told us that dissolved cow hooves are in it. Crazy. If you tried it you'd believe it. It has a black licorice flavor and is one big fiery punch to the gut every sip you take! You can buy a recycled water bottle full of this stuff for .75! That's how you KNOW it's the street drink! The people of Guaranda were loving it and were so proud of there Blue Bird. It's rude to pass it up so while I did a couple of the fake out, just put it to your lips and don't drink, sometimes people know and you just have to take it.
Whew, I went off on a tangent thinking about that stuff....
Anyway, full fiesta and parade and that night was more fiesta, more water even though now it was night and FREEZING but still pretty fun.
I believe it was the next day where we met up with even more volunteers from Peace Corps and made friends with the lovely people of World Teach! We were such a great blend of friends. We were calling our self World Peace Teach Corps, how cute, no?
Some of them were wise and wore full on rain coats! However, we later found that ponchos and rain coats only made you a target for the bucket! People were take off the hoods and pour the water right down there backs! I was having fun with the spray foam myself. I was nailing kids, the elderly, anyone who had one in their hand and looked at me too long was fair game. As you can see from the pics I was getting my fair share of foam and flour too!!
Another morning we got up bright and early after a day of super fiestas for the roasting of the Chancho. Chancho = Pig and Pig = a living creature that must be killed in order to make the all the Chancho treats. Being a soft core vegetarian I was quite woozy about the whole idea, but Chad was SO game to help and I'm ALWAYS down for a cultural experience.
The host fam of the volunteer we stayed with said that Chad could help kill the pig and he was stoked. Guess who got nominated to Film and take pics of the whole experience? You guessed it. I stood in the corner, held the camera covered my eyes and tried not to cry...too much as the big screamed and cried. I won't go into details and man it was hard even finding a pic that was not soooooooooooooooo graphic. I will say that the next pic is a dead animal if you're sensative.
Chad was a straight up surgeon though. He handled it wonderfully and after that the family was OBSESSED with him lol. It just goes to show you how far integration well get you. If you want to join the Peace Corps, but you're stuck on being a vegetarian and you like things this way and you only want to do things that way, that's fine, but you will miss out on an enriching experience being stuck in your ways. Sometimes it is really rewarding just diving in all the way and really experiencing the lives of other people. EYE personally wouldn't have been able to kill no pig though lol, but I'm glad that I was with someone that could and I got to still be apart of the celebration. Talk about romantic. Chad also scraped our names in the hide of the pig, to my horror and to the families delight. The teenage girl next to me longingly added "necesito un novio pronto" I guess she TOO would love a man that would carve her and his name in the charred skin of a recently slaughtered pig. I'm only lucky lady! (no seriously I am.)
Later we went back to the house and they had prepared the chancho 100 different ways. I pretty much stuck to eating the mote (boiled corn) but I did have a bit of some fritada (fried pig fat) but just cause it was Chad's conquest. As we ate an impromptu fiesta erupted in the kitchen. The abuelo of the family came in with a drum and we danced and sang..and oh yes the Pajaro Azul made it's rounds one again.
After that I believe was the concert, we partied in the cold but we still had fun. I had been thrown in a fountain earlier so I was soaked to the bone. When it was time to go we were more than ready. The volunteers from both Peace Corps and World Teach came streaming in all weekend into the week. I had to go back to work but the fiesta went well into the week. I have no idea how the volunteers that live there made it happen but they were oh so hospitable and great!
I would definitely suggest Guaranda for Canaval if you are going to be in Ecuador at the end of February/beginning of March. It's a jumping good time but also a cultural experience. The best of both worlds. Be ready to let go and dive deep into the moment. Bring a raincoat...maybe, don't get your hair done before you go and if you have some extra flour and eggs laying around, pack those too, cause at Carnaval those are no longer grocery items...they are ammo!
Hasta el proximo!!!
*Gracias DD for la su hospitalidad y los fotos!
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