Courtney Brings in the New Year

Yes, our darling Courtney arrived the day before New Years to spend a week with us Quiteños.  She plans to return in June and we are already looking forward to that.  She was also fortunate to arrive the day before New Year’s, one day before the “Fiesta de Disfraces” with my family.  Translation: costume party.  Yep, they likey the costume parties down this way and we found several costume stores more than willing to dress us up for the night.  Fortunately, the girls had planned well and settled on a relatively easy (kidding) costume – Geishas.  The costume part was easy, but anything less than 4 pounds of makeup per face was definitely going to be complicated.  Ethan had it the easiest with a full body costume of an alien, and yours truly decided to pick an old movie character.  See if you can figure out who I was.  If you don’t know who I was based on the photos below, it can mean one of three things: 1) you are too old; 2) you are too young; or 3) [most likely], I did a bad job on my homemade costume.  You be the judge.

You’ll also see in the photos below one of the other main traditions of New Year’s, the burning of the “Año Viejo” (old year).  This is your classic straw/wood chip stuffed figure that is burned New Year’s eve and that represents a “cleansing” or good karma event.  Some are dressed up to look like famous political or fictional characters. We saw many a Bart or Homer Simpson for sale as the market for plain or recognizable figures booms this time of year.  Your’s truly picked up a mask of our friend Fidel.  Leaping over the burning Año Viejo is also tradition as are fireworks, of course.  The picks and video below cover the best parts of the evening.  Enjoy!