Chapter 13: Cuenca day festivities

   Here in Ecuador each city has a day celebrating its anniversary. For Cuenca, that day is April 12th. The entire week surrounding Cuenca day there are festivities throughout the city with the biggest, loudest things happening on the twelth. I didn't really get to experience much of the festivities except for Thursday the twelth, partly because we had a mountain of homework throughout the week, and partly because we were busy with other activities-they sure know how to keep us busy here.

  My host mom had been telling me all about the events that were happening each day, trying to psych me up. I think wednesday night I came home at 7pm, as soon as I crossed the threshold of the house Lupe berated me saying, "Why aren't you in Parque Calderon right now?!" I explained that I had way too much homework to celebrate. She sighed, but we both took solace in the fact that I'd be able to see everything happening the next evening.

   On my to my afternoon class Thursday there were already stages being set up in any open space in the city. After our class, our entire group went in search of food. I stopped our gringo procession when I saw a café sign advertising waffles! We went in to the café, it was a cozy french place right off of the main plaza. I ordered a nutella waffle with a chocolate-banana milk shake, because why not? The milkshake was delectable and frothy ( Spanish word for foam/froth is "espuma" for the curious), but the waffle was not as exciting as I hoped it would be. Yes it was smothered in a thick layer of hazelnut-goodness, and there were little strawberry shavings, but the waffle itself was reminiscient of a freezer waffle while I was expecting something on par with a Belgium waffle or one that my real mom makes ( she makes the best waffles you guys). In the end the toppings completley made up for the lackluster texture of the waffle.

   When we left the café it was starting to get dark, but still it wasn't quite time to start the festitivities so we wandered the streets for a bit. When we returned to the plaza a sizeable crowd had already started to form. Right away we found two bands, one from the military and one from the Cuenca police force. Oh man, those bands could play! They had horns, bass guitars, acoustic guitars, percussion and they put some soul into that music. I have never seen military bands cut loose so creatively, I mean in the US the police and military usually play solemn affairs or John Phillip Sousa. This was salsa, this was alive. You could dance to it. I think I was dancing to it.

   We ended up finding two of the girls from the Spring Semester group in the plaza. They said that no one else from their group had wanted to come out and play. They also informed us that at each of the corner tents of the plaza they were giving away small servings of Canelazo which is very similar to a hot tottie or a hot apple cider. We acted on this news quickly, wow it was warm and tasty!

  While waiting on the corner for some of Isaac's friends to meet us I decided to buy a scarf. Mary and Emilie helped me pick a cool purple and green one. I had a picture of myself in it, but I no longer have that picture in my possession. Why is that you ask? Well I ended up splitting off with Zoe and Teresa (the girls from Spring Semester) we went to get more Canelazo and see some of the street acts. We saw fire jugglers which made me think of my friends Hannah and Katie back home who can fire hula hoop. At one point we tried to forge our way through a thick crowd by the time we reach the other side I realized that I no longer had my camera in my jacket pocket. I called Zoe and Teresa and told them what happened. I followed the primary rule of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and didn't panic. It turned out that Teresa had also lost her cell phone. We retraced our steps to no avail, our electronics were gone with the crowd. We got some more Canelazo to recharge our spirits then went to see a mime act which Zoe voluteer me for. It was tremendously fun, three other men and I did a little choreographed kung-fu-clown routine complete with a pelvic thrust. I definitely received the biggest round of applause of the four of us, either for putting on such a good show or for my wonderful red hair.

  We rounded out the night by watching some dancing to a traditional Andean band complete with a charango player. Then we bought a few Pilsener's and sat on the steps of the Cathedral and relaxed and talked and sipped our cheap beers. It was a damn near perfect night. What about losing our things you ask? Well, yes that happened, but they didn't take my health, wallet, ipod nor journal. Sure I miss the pictures I did get a chance to rip onto my computer. And the camera, I miss the camera a bit, we went through a lot together, that camera and I, but in the end it was just a camera. There were still good spirits surrounding us and adventure to be had. Don't get me wrong, we were definitely a bit more cautious after that, but nothing else happened that night and we had a great time.