New Years Eve in Banos

Ecuadorians truly know how to celebrate New Years Eve.  Rich with customs and traditions, New Years is a playful goodbye to the old to allow for the new.

It's a cross between Halloween and Santacon.  People dress up as all kinds of different things, and  they wear lots of masks and wigs.

After I met a group of nice guys, I just had to try on a couple of their wigs.

I do NOT look good as a blonde.

Then are the mannequins -- the before pictures.  They are supposed to represent things you want to change -- they can be specific people you know, customers, or just weirdos.  The townspeople take a lot of care in creating these very elaborate "people".

At midnight, everyone drags their "people" into the middle of the street, douses them with gasoline and lights them on fire.  If you jump over them, that means good luck (I think).

This is actually me jumping over the fire.

Then there are the widows.  These are men dressed as women who are supposedly the widows of the men being burned.  They stop cars and people walking and ask for money.  They can be very demanding.  This poor girl was surrounded by five of them and they would not let her go!

Here are some stopping a car.

All the local people stand on the corner with their families and watch, laughing.  It was very  family-oriented.  People in general weren't drinking, very different from the U.S.  And the bars weren't full at all.

Other New Years Eve customs:

• you're supposed to wear yellow underwear for good luck
• you're supposed to eat 12 grapes at midnight, one for each month of the new year.  They were being sold all over the street out of backs of trucks and in wheelbarrows.

All in all, the most wonderfully unique New Years I've ever spent.