Karmen's last day in Ecuador (for this trip) was a full one. We had meeting at Moisés and María Guzmán's with a quick picture-taking session immediately following.
Luísa shows off her pearly whites.
Our host family
Best friends
Karmen and I made tacos for lunch. They were a hit! The greatest compliment we received was when don Moisés served himself a second taco. (He's strictly a fish and rice man!)
After lunch, Moisés and Ruthi took us on a driving tour of the city to look at the año viejos.
Here's a little write-up on año viejos from http://www.life-in-ecuador.com/ecuador-new-years.html.
One big part of the festivities for New Years Eve in Ecuador are "los años viejos" (the old years). People make large scarecrow-like dolls often of the people they dislike or of notable people from the past year. Some come complete with signs detailing their sins. And then at mid-night everyone lights them on fire. The symbolic meaning of course is the forgetting of the bad of the past year and the hope that the coming year will be better.
Some are huge!
These particularly large ones have been created for competition. Don Moisés thought that the winning año viejo earned something like $10,000! Many that we saw were still under construction.
This fellow's car needs a little work before he can take his recently purchased año viejo home.
The only kind of snowman you'll ever see in Guayaquil
We had to interrupt the volleyball game that was taking place in the middle of the street to continue our tour. I think some of the players wondered why we couldn't have taken an alternate route!
Some folks were charging a dollar for people to have their picture taken with their completed año viejo. We took all the pictures we wanted for free as we drove along.
Worm parking
After our año viejo tour, we headed for the center of the city. Part of our route took us through a major market. You would never have guessed that it was Christmas day; business carried on as usual. Crowds swarmed the market, both on foot and in vehicles. It took us quite a while to get past this point.
I was wondering how they decided on the amount of $366 as a fine for blocking the intersection.
The malecón is a popular place today as well. This is the little lagoon where kids can get inside large plastic balls and roll around on top of the water.
Many cities in Ecuador have a large mosaic statue in the center. Guayaquil has several such statues scattered throughout the city. Here's the back of the monkey statue.
It's at the entrance / exit to the tunnels that take you to or away from the city center on one end.
We like the colorful houses on the hillside.
Last stop before returning home for supper: Cristo del consuelo overlook
The flowers were so beautiful; we just couldn't stop taking pictures.
Do you have a favorite?
It seems like this was the only place we could get cell signal, so I had to help don Moisés out a bit as he communicated with the rest of the family regarding our ETA back at the ranch.
The bridge that collapsed in the April 16 earthquake is under construction.
Home
We had pizza for supper! It was an "American" day for us as far as meals were concerned, and we didn't not enjoy it. 😉
Games after supper
Everyone enjoyed learning Splendor and The Bean Game.
And finally, the dreaded moment arrived. Karmen's flight left for Miami at 11:59 pm, so Ronny and Luísa took us to the airport a little before 10:00. It wasn't easy to say good-bye, but we were already making plans for the next visit.
And she's off! Thanks bunches for coming, Karmy! It was super special to have you here! See you soon. :-)
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