CUENCA GEARS UP FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY

After nearly 20 hours of plane travel, Jim and I arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador to discover there were no planes from Guayaquil to Cuenca (a 1/2 hour trip) later that day or the next day. We decided to bite the bullet and take the bus, which can take up to 5 hours depending on the bus. After a truly hair raising ride from the airport to the bus station (lanes, what lanes?) we encountered a mob scene. The Guayaquil bus station is absolutely enormous and it was packed with thousands of people. Of course the area we needed to go to buy our ticket was at the opposite end of the station. We waded and elbowed our way through, bought our tickets ($8 each) and made our way to the 2nd floor from whence the buses depart - only to encounter another mob scene waiting for the buses.
We did arrive with no incident in Cuenca to find that where we are staying is in the heart of the party zone for Cuencano Independence Day, November 3rd. The street fairs, crafts, music, dancing, fireworks and general revelry were in full swing by October 30th.

Vendors take over a large park, Parque de Madres, and sell their hand crafts. Here are some of the many, many paintings displayed around the perimeter of the park.


We saw lots of local Andean art and couldn't pass up this beautiful blanket and scarf made of Alpaca wool.

It didn't hurt that the Otavalo woman selling them was very personable and cute. (We also bought 4 more scarves that we didn't intend to but got away before buying a poncho).

Tonight as we set out for dinner, we saw these folks setting up fireworks displays.

Later, at dinner, we saw and heard them being burned. Quite a nice display!

At an area nearby a different market was set up which has vendors from all over South America. I was captivated by a booth with many retablos from Peru. Retablos are little tableaux, sometimes religious, sometimes not, created within boxes with closing lids. This one seems to be a village festival, with some villagers in masks and others playing local instruments.

The figures in this retablo are made of corn flour and water. The vendor told us that the tradition (and old style) retablo figures are made of potato flour and water.

And this is the gorgeous exterior of the retablo.




In this market we saw many interesting things - items made from tin, figures imagined from found tree branches and fitted with real rat jaws and teeth, beautiful leather work, jewelry, fabulous textile art from Columbia and Peru, wool goods, wooden toys, clothing, and on and on.

We barely scratched the surface of all there is to see and do during this festive time, so tomorrow we'll check it out some more!

Audrey