The Christmas Parade on December 24th is the full Monte.
It is an all day affair with the parade route being prepared at seven in the morning and the end of the parade passing Calderone Park at seven in the evening. It is music, floats, dancers, walkers, Christmas religious scenes, traditional Ecuadorian dress, people watching, cars, horses, vendors selling food and drink, photographers, drones, flags, security, television cameras, children climbing over fences, sleeping babies.
Each neighborhood in and around Cuenca has an entry in the parade. There are smaller neighborhood parades leading up to this massive event, but this is the Mother of all Parades.
It is part religious, part ceremony, part showmanship, part outrageous. When you get this many people together there is no end to diversions and entertainment..
Closing streets and letting people dress up and parade without penalty is Cuenca’s Christmas present to itself.
There is a lively street art scene in Cuenca.
One can google Cuenca Street Art and find examples I haven’t met yet.
At an intersection where traffic moves from the Rio Tomebamba into the Historical District there are two skeletons on an exterior wall of a building cavorting amid a glorious cactus patch. The scene is reminiscent of ” Day of the Dead ” in New Mexico, a yearly Mexican celebration that sees skeletons come out and remind people of their mortality.You can bet the person on the other side of the glass in that anthropology museum, in front of you, didn’t know they were going to be an object of display when they joined the spirit world.
These two skeletons look full of life and the inscription above both reads ” Salud a la Vida. ” On one end of the art work is the artist’s first name signature ,” Juli 2015. ”
Just over the top of these skeleton’s grinning heads, in Plaza Otorongo below us, you can see a blown up Santa doll waving at street traffic and strolling tourists.
In a weird way, celebrating Santa is as weird as celebrating skeletons.
Fantasies and nightmares both come from deep places.
Gilberto is trying a new reed. Sue is playing clarinet instead of soprano sax. A different bass player is sitting in. It is Wednesday, the middle of the week.
At showtime, it doesn’t matter how many hours you practice, how much theory you know, how many times you have played a song.
Live jazz is irrevocable. You can’t erase what you play, You are the bottom line.
When the light turns green you play.
When a song is over, it is over, except for a few bars that resonate in hearts that causes people to whistle your melody as they walk home in the dark.
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This morning there is a Christmas concert in progress across the Rio Tomebamba, in Cuenca, Ecuador.
Two young boys have decided they aren’t going to walk up or down the river to either of the bridges to cross so they roll up pant legs, leave tennis shoes on, grab sticks for support, and cross the river with only a few rocks to balance on.
When they see me they wave.
The voices of the choir gives them a heavenly send off.
Catching these moments is like catching butterflies with holes in your net.
Within thirty minutes of Cuenca, right on the highway not far from Gualaceo, is an orchid farm that grows, cross breeds, and sells orchids worldwide to collectors and aficionados. Ecuador is home to thousands of varieties of orchids and Ecuagenera is a business that grows, researches, and promotes conservation of orchids in Ecuador and South America.
Orchids are epiphytes and attach themselves to trees, rocks, and other hosts. Interesting enough, there is one orchid that only needs light and water to survive. Andres, my guide,says people in Ecuador hang them in their showers instead of using a fan.
Ecuagenera, according to its brochure, ” does research to find the best cultivation medium for each orchid group and the best micro climate in which to grow them. ” In their nursery and showroom are gorgeous variations of color and shape.
If people are spending all this this time to come up with newer, stronger, more beautiful varieties of orchids, it is not inconceivable that some farmers would want to shape the human race to match their needs.
Humans don’t match up well to orchids.
Orchids just have to be themselves to be exquisite.
Walking through the Museum, and the grounds below, gives footnotes of the past.
All that is left of the past here are rock walls of homes and stone walls built to terrace land so crops could be grown on hillsides. The soil is deep, dark, rich, and, with light and rain, it is not impossible to see it feeding an Empire.
Standing on this hill, clouds seem like you can touch them.
It is hard to reconcile this peaceful place with human sacrifices but blood has always been how you pay Gods back for transgressions.
The Incan Empire grew through conquest and peaceful assimilation. They built roads, like the Romans, and developed infrastructure and capabilities to organize large numbers of people.
When you climb over hills, look out, stomp in the dirt and see water, flowers, birds, animals, you can understand the Inca civilization that grew out of nature.
The Incan Code was do not steal, do not lie, and do not be lazy.
We sacrifice humans today, but we do it in slower, more treacherous ways.
The Incan’s, very slowly, are starting to look less savage than I have been taught to see them.
From the street, this exposition seems promising.
There is a huge dinosaur on a flatbed in Parque Calderone. There is also, nearby, a tall movie poster featuring a reptile with big teeth, the word Dinosaurs in big letters, and an offer to children to get in to this exhibit absolutely free if with their parents.
Dinosaurs are still one of the first topics in grade school science and movies like Jurassic Park have kept interest fanned in the large creatures who, by their fossils, we know to have existed.
These modern man made show beasts are fabricated from steel, plastic, with rubber like skin. They are brightly painted and dwarf us little humans, hardly sand grains between their toes.
I don’t see any animal here I would want to take home and have to feed but any one of them would keep riff raff out of my back yard.
Dentists, I have no doubts, would love to get one of these guys or girls in their biggest chair but doing a root canal would not be easy because peering into this Rex’s mouth, and going in with the biggest drill you have, would take nerves of steel and several drums of anesthesia.
I bet their dinosaur breath would be the kiss of death.
These two couples, just married, are getting their wedding photos taken in Parque Calderone.
When I first see them they have, with them, a young bearded tenor sax player playing ” Here comes the Bride ” on a street corner.
Their little photographer is contorted to get the right angle for his shots, the young women are smiling and laughing. Their new husbands look bemused and eager to please.
The entourage crosses the street, the ladies lifting white gowns so they won’t get them dirty, They take more photos by the spot where I witnessed official ceremonies celebrating ex pats, good business prospects, and a new transport system.
The last wedding I happened upon was in Montevideo, Uruguay on Sarandi Street.
This is just as memorable.
Everyone is happy, and, if they stay that way, they will be together when they are old.
They are, as a friend once told me, about rapping his knuckles on stones on a square in Russia, ” Marking the Moment. ”
The last accident covered in Scott Treks was a rollover in Montevideo, Uruguay on the Rambla.
In this case, in the Cuenca Historical District, by the time I walk to see what the crowd is about, the scene is just a crashed blue bus with its front end partially inside the front door of a corner retail shop, a fire engine and ambulance on scene, yellow plastic tape roping off the area, cops in lime colored jackets keeping people away, no bodies lifeless in the street.
The funny part is the difficulty cops have in keeping people from ducking under their yellow tape, bypassing the scene, and continuing on their way. Authorities have roped off the entire intersection so people coming from all four directions are stopped from moving forward and told they have to go back the way they came.
Some people shrug shoulders at this nuisance, some approach the cops and are let through barriers with special permission, others lift the yellow tape and go through the intersection when the cop is distracted. It is difficult to get people to do even the simplest things when they don’t feel it makes sense or makes them change their behavior.
The accident happened in a second but it will take hours to wrap up the investigation and pin ” cause ” on something or someone.
This accident looks like it might go back to failed brakes, but human error is at the heart of most accidents.
This afternoon us humans have made yet another mess.
The domes of the New Cathedral can be seen from most high ground in Cuenca.
The New Cathedral was built in the last hundred years but still qualifies to be called new. The Old Cathedral, on the other side of Parque Calderone, is smaller, less ambitious, and is used now for events, occasional ceremonies, and as a museum.
The New Cathedral is simple on the outside but grandiose inside.
Standing inside, on marble floors, with enormous space above and around me, I am humbled. Modern man is not accustomed to being humble until events spiral out of control and they are looking at their homes destroyed in a flood, earthquake,hurricane, or fire.
In older days, there weren’t as many screens shielding us from reality or ideologues trying to shape the way we see the world around us.
People died young, the fact that some are rich and most are poor was accepted as normal, and armies marched across borders with fire and brimstone. These days no one on television tells you problems are insurmountable and the only thing you can do is pray.
This morning, people kneel in prayer, some light candles, some quietly sit in the pews, touch their beads or read catechisms on I phones. There is no official ceremony today and Christ is eclipsed by gold trim. Flat screen televisions ,mounted on stanchions ,help those in the back of the church see services when church is in session.. There is one confession box open and a sole lady waits to go inside and confess her small sins that aren’t likely to sink our boat.
Outside,city life continues without repose, or reflection.
Vendors are selling candles, rosaries, beads as you reach the Cathedral’s front steps. On another side of the church are stalls selling Christmas stockings, cards, and tree ornaments. A man selling lottery tickets does a brisk business and cops ensure that thieves know there are earthly punishments to add to spiritual ones.
Knowing what I know about the Spanish conquest of South America, and the part the church played, I find it hard to stay here and be respectful.
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