07/18/2003

Carnival

Fiesta de La Virgen de las Mercedes

Dressing in Drag, water fights, dancing in the streets, fireworks and eating too much. Sounds like a night out on Oxford street as well as (strangely enough) like being eight and getting up to mischief behind your parents back at a birthday party! This is how the Ecuadorians love to party. Music and parades are part of every day life, on a domestic level villagers celebrate their saint day, but the following are some excellent national festivals.

The biggest Fiesta in Ecuador takes place in February the week before Lent. Carnival is the location of every kids dream- mass water fights where even the adults join in. In fact the adults get so carried away with their aquatic combat that the central highland town of Ambato banned the fighting because it was to rough. Instead they prefer the more tame option of celebrating fruit in the last two weeks of February. Sounds like an excellent and obvious substitute for water!!

Probably the country's most famous- and the most beguiling- fiesta is held on September 23-24 for La Fiesta de la Mama Negra in Latacunga, also known as the Fiesta de La Virgen de las Mercedes. This is an opportunity for your secret desires to raid mamma's wardrobe to be realised! Men dress up as women and blacken their faces, and like all good parties, there's a whole lot of dancing and getting pissed in the streets. No party is complete without a hangover, accordingly two weeks later there's yet another big parade in honor of Mama Negra, which some people regard as the more authentic of the two. Whatever...another good chance to whip out the heels and makeup!