...and taking of a bang, New Year's here, or Año Nuevo, started 4 days before with a lot of bangs! I only arrived back late on Boxing Day evening and a few days later was a bit shocked to hear repeated long bangs in my neighbourhood that sounded suspiciously like bombs! As I'd been adjusting to being back in this different world of Guayaquil after London and barely leaving the house, I can only say this bomb-like sounds served to further my paranoia.
On the day before NYE I realised what all the bangs were about - they were año viejos, literally old year dolls which are papiér maché dolls that are filled with explosives and then set on fire and as Guayaquileños like to party they'd started setting them off very early. I went and saw a place where they were selling them and realised how incredible they are. They are often models of commonly known toys, so Woody, Buzz Lightyear and that green alien thing from Toy Story were common themes. Plus other kids characters such as Sponge Bob Square Pants and action heros were everywhere. These things are amazing and they come in sizes from about 30cm tall to some that I saw which were the same height as two floors of buildings.....insane, absolutely insane and only in Ecuador. People had them sitting in their porches, on their balconies and were transporting them around in pick-ups - a sight to behold!
On NYE itself, I spent the evening with Martha, a work colleague, and her family. We started the evening early at 6pm with a visit to the Malecon 2000 (the promenade) on one of Guayaquil´s numerous estuaries and watched all the shows down there including a 6/7 year old who had the most incredible adult voice and was entertaining the entire crowd with her singing and compering. As well as some Arabic dancing, there were displays of the Año Viejo dolls
Later in the evening we drove around in vein trying to buy another Año Viejo although the extended family had 2 between them. I was quite looking forward to setting light to my old year and saying goodbye to it with the intention of focusing on the new year. Anyway, after an evening of fireworks across every part of the sky at midnight we lit the collection of Año Viejos that we'd collected with another family across the street.
And why on earth would you risk parking anywhere near that chaos? Having said that though I'm not sure that there would be any places in Guayaquil were a car would've been safe. Many people got even more into it and threw more explosives and fireworks on to the fires and god, I thought I was going to go deaf with the decible level. A couple of cars ran the gauntlet driving at fast speeds down the street and dodging the fires on the way... talk about taking your life in your hands! So after all the excitement it was time to sit down and eat with the family as is the tradition. It was great food although slighly weird to be eating such a fat meal at 12.30am....I finally got home after 3 by which time the streets only had a few small burning fires going but most had been hosed down although the ash and debris floated around the streets for days. Similarly the explosions and fireworks went on for days and only really stopped a day ago. Like I said Guayaquileños know how to party!
Once I work out this blogsite, i'll be sure to get some photos up because seeing is believing and all that!
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