Dia de los inocentes

That is:  Day of the Innocents.  The story is that when Herod heard that the King of the Jews had been born, he ordered that all of the babies under the age of two be killed.  For ten days, the babies (innocents) were killed, and the slaughter ended on January 6th, so Day of the Innocents is celebrated on that day.  I have never heard this before.  Supposedly it is in the New Testament, but for some reason, no one noticed it until the fifth century.  And why January 6 since Jesus wasn't really born on December 25?  Also, it sounds like echoes of Pharaoh when Moses was born.  Oh well, as my father always said, never let the facts interfere with a good story.

Anyway, if you were to commemorate (celebrate) this horrible deed, how would you do it?  Obviously, with dancing wookies.

Not to mention Darth Vader, Princess Leia, and Stormtroopers.  There were quite a few Luke Skywalkers dancing as well.

Yes, it turns out that in Ecuador, the Day of the Innocents is a cross between Halloween and April Fool's Day, culminating with a parade at night with most of the viewers in costumes that rival those of the paraders.  After the Star Wars float and marchers, came the Seven Deadly Sins.

The sign over the two seated devils says Capital Sins.

Dancing devils

Sloth

Gluttony

The parade is ... well ... rather disorganized.  There are only a few floats and there are several minutes between them, so the spectators walk all over the street.  When a float comes, it is preceded by clowns who tell everyone to back up.  It was so crowded, that at times I could not move, but I could always get a front row view by walking into the middle of the street after a float passed.  After the Deadly Sins came Cleopatra.  Why?  I have no idea.  Why Star Wars?

The Enchantment of Cleopatra

And what is a parade without jugglers and clowns?

Toward the end, there were several Inca representations ... because they had a lot to do with Herod.  But this was not the serious Inti Raymi festival that I saw in Cusco last year.

And these were some of my favorites:

Scarecrows with blades like Wolverine or Edward Scissorhands

The Easter Bunny on a motorcycle

Airplane passengers

As good as the parade was, the spectators were way more fun.  They would walk around between the floats, posing for pictures, and just fooling around.

I got my first hint of what was to come when I walked in the park in the afternoon.

The parade went on until after 11 at night, and some of the children didn't make it to the end, but most did including this little Superman.

I knew about the celebration here on New Year's Eve with the burning manigotes, and came to Cuenca in part because it supposedly has the best New Year's Eve celebration in Ecuador.  But I lucked into the Day of the Innocents and it was way more fun.  New Year's Eve was spread out all over the city since everyone burns their own manigote.  But the entire city was at the parade.  I am told that in the past there was a problem with alcohol (big surprise) so now public drinking is not allowed and no one was selling alcohol.  This was the cleanest, most good natured fun I have seen in a long time.  Well, of course.  How else would you commemorate the Day of the Innocents.

Feliz ano nuevo de Cuenca

From the Galapagos I came to Cuenca, an old colonial city in the Andes.  I am attending language school again, but the big attraction here was the New Years Eve celebration.  In the week before New Years, everyone gets an effigy or big rag doll called a monigote.  All the stores have them with signs written on them.  The monigotes represent everything bad that happened in 2015.  People write "wills" with their wishes for the new year.  At midnight, they burn the monigotes and read the wills.  They might also jump over the burning manigote.

Stalls selling masks and wigs

Another stall selling masks and wigs

Manigotes for sale.  Masks to be added later.

The sign on this manigote says:  Be careful because I have no brakes.

This family burnt their monigote in the afternoon, perhaps so their children could watch.





In addition to the individual and family monigotes, groups in different neighborhoods built large dioramas of monigotes, with signs on them.  I am told that this was a big competition with a significant prize for the best diorama, but I didn't understand who the groups were.

Building a diorama

The sign on the monigote in blue says he is Marty McFly

A soccer themed diorama

This next one is also soccer themed.  The giant blue ball represents the earth but it has tentacles on it like an octopus.  It looks like it says MAFIA on it, but there is a thinner F after the I, so it really says MAFIFA, and the entire diorama is about the corruption of FIFA.  The men have signs on them indicating that they are from Russia, Dubai, and other places, and they are handing over fistfuls of money.

A group of clowns in uniforms paraded down the street, I have no idea why.

So the groups spend all day building this intricate dioramas.  In the evening, people gather around them, music is played, and people dance in the streets.  This is New Years Eve cum Fourth of July, so people shoot off firecrackers and fireworks, and wave sparklers.  Then, about fifteen minutes before midnight, they take down the dioramas that they worked all day to build, and put them in a big pile.  At midnight, they set it all afire, as people throw their own monigotes into the bonfire.  Up and down each street, you can see small groups burning monigotes, reading their wills, and jumping the fires.  And there are fireworks in the sky.

This was the Marty McFly diorama

I am told that this is how they celebrate New Year's Eve all over Ecuador but that it is particularly colorful in Cuenca.  And it was.

Adios Galapagos

Our last two days in the Galapagos were more of the same, which is hardly a complaint.  On Sunday, our guide decided we needed to go snorkeling at 6:30 AM before breakfast.  I fully intended to sleep in and skip it, but in the end, I was up, so off I went at that ungodly hour.  There were so many schools of fish, and also manta rays, needlefish, star fish, and a few more reef sharks.







On our hike after breakfast, we saw more frigate birds, and land iguanas.  Most fascinating, we saw a mother bird return to her nest and feed her nestling.  She digests the food, then puts her beak all the way down the baby's throat, and regurgitates it into him.  Then we sailed to Isla Bartolemeo, snorkeled again, and hiked up Pinnacle Rock.  On the way to shore we got our only brief look at the Galapagos penguins.  Apparently the view from PInnacle Rock is the classic picture of the Galapagos.

On Monday, our last day, we snorkeled one last time and hiked twice on typically volcanic Galapagos landscapes - Chinese Hat and Dragon Hill on Santa Cruz.  We saw more land iguanas and a few more flamingos.  Our guide thought we should go snorkeling again on Tuesday morning at 6 AM since we had to leave the ship at 8:30, but we all mutineed and said no mas.  And that was my week on the Galapagos.  A few last pictures of cute sea lion pups.

Lobos del mar

I didn't understand why the island we went to yesterday was called Isla Lobos.  Island of the wolves?  Then I realized that sea lions are called lobos del mar (sea wolves) in Spanish, not leones del mar.  Today we went ashore on Sante Fe island where there was a large pod of sea lions on the beach.  They are way more interesting than I would have expected.  First of all, I know that sea lions are mammals, but I never thought about what that meant, so it was a shock to watch the pups nursing.

The mothers seem practically catatonic.  Meanwhile, there is one huge male that stays in the shallow water protecting his pod.  There was what looked like dog poop all over the beach and I couldn't understand it since there are no dogs here.  Duh.  Sea lions are mammals.  We watched them poop and they have genitalia.  And the pups are as cute as puppies.  By the end of the trip, everyone wanted to take one home.

Their fur is light brown when it is dry although it looks black and slick when wet.  Sea lions, unlike seals, have five toes on their back flippers so they can walk on land.  They move surprisingly fast, and can pull themselves up on rocks where they sleep in the most uncomfortable looking positions.

More snorkeling with large schools of fish today.  Then we went for an afternoon hike and saw the famous Galapagos land iguanas which are bright yellow.

Kind of different but I couldn't get excited about lizards.

Christmas in the Galapagos

We sailed overnight to Isla Espanola.  In the morning we went ashore and took a long hike across the island.  Today was the first day that we saw the famous Galapagos birds up close and personal.  I'm not sure how Darwin managed to catch finches; they are so small and quick.  But the sea birds are large and quite easy to see when they are sitting.  Today we walked by their nesting site and saw hundreds of birds sitting on their eggs or their new babies.



I have forgotten the name of this bird, but it lays two eggs five days apart.  After the chicks hatch, the older one kicks the younger out of the nest to die, but if there is something wrong with the older chick, the younger one kicks him out.  In this way, the parents ensure one healthy chick.  We saw the last albatross sitting on her nest as all the others had already flown away.  On the beach we saw sea lions, sea iguanas, and the Galapagos crabs which are bright red.



After our hike, we suited up and went snorkeling again, and again it was incredible.  The sea lions just swam in circles around us.  They gracefully rotate, swimming right side up and then upside down.

After lunch we came back ashore to visit the sea lions on Gardner Beach.   They live in pods and just hang out on the beach.  There were lots of pups and they are just as cute as puppies.

After lunch the crew put up the sails for the first (and it turned out, only) time.  We still motored, but it looked like a sailboat.  By the way, our Beagle is only ten feet shorter than the Beagle that Darwin sailed in (without a motor) for five years.  While we were sailing, a large group of dolphins and whales swam by, jumping in unison alongside us.

My roommate, Sylvia, and me enjoying the afternoon sail.

We sailed all afternoon, enjoying the sun and the rest.  Late in the afternoon, we reached San Cristobal, another inhabited island.  We didn't go ashore, but most of the crew did so they could visit their families for Christmas.  Our cook, Pedro, had spent all afternoon fixing us a feast of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and the fixing.  We never bothered telling the crew that eight of the twelve guests did not celebrate Christmas.

A Christmas toast

If you had asked me before this trip how interested I was in bird, I would have shrugged, but birds were the highlight of Christmas day, and we were all excited to see the three most famous Galapagos varieties.  First, we saw the red footed boobies with their  blue beaks, and then we saw the blue footed boobies, the symbol of the Galapagos with their unbelievably bright blue feet.  I had seen one in flight a few days earlier, but today we saw them on the rocks right in front of us.

Pretty amazing.  I had seen a National Geographic show about frigate birds mating but wasn't sure it was the right season.  It was.  The males have a bright red sack that hangs down below their beaks.  When they are ready to mate, they blow it up to an incredible size.

Birds nesting for as far as you can see

Of course, birding was not our only activity.  We had a nice siesta on board while sailing to Isla Lobos, and then we snorkeled again with the fish, sea lions, and the biggest sea turtle I had ever seen.