Sunday, February 14, 2010

Carnaval and St Valentin in Ecuador!

Emilie and Sebastian
In the Parque de los Enamorados
Los enamorados sin fronteras
Emilie playing with Sebastian

Emilie in front of the cathedral
Taking a break in the park
The cathedral
Lunch at the Mercado Central
Hornado, typical dish during FFF

Carnaval is reaching its most intense moments! On Saturday, we go to parque Montalvo and admire the cathedral, decorated with fruits and flowers. It's packed with people enjoying the fiestas, vendors and tourists. We keep buying new food and each time it's a delight for our taste buds: sandwiches of preserved figs and cheese, cocadas (coconut and molasses), choclo (cooked popcorn), zapote (a fruit that tastes like mango and pumpkin) and melloco (bonsai potato).

On Sunday, we go and watch the parade. We actually miss most of it because the streets are very crowded and we don't find a good spot. We end up at the beginning of the parade, when the last contingent leaves! We had a nice walk though, and we quickly get hungry so we go back to the Mercado central and I have my favorite llapingachos, fried fish and blackberry-coconut juice. Emilie has the traditional dish of the fiestas, el hornado (pork bbq). After lunch we go to the house of Tia Isabel so Emilie can play with her primos. Sebastian is there and we decide to take those monsters to the park. They are wild and worn us out. We also go and check the Parque de los enamorados. It's St Valentin day and it's the perfect park to celebrate this day. After the kids exhaust themselves, we go back to Tia Isabel's house and go up the roof to admire the volcano. The sky is clear, it looks like the Tungurahua stopped spewing ashes. But suddenly, we can see a large black shape coming out of the volcano. The Tungurahua is erupting! What a spectacular show! That was the highlight of the FFF!


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