Day 5 December 31 2017
By: Lauren Cook and John Hoeffner
This was our last morning in the beautiful Galapagos Islands. We took a bus to the port to board the ferry. Once we got off the bus, we saw the first of the several Ecuadorian New Year’s traditions. There were men dressed as women holding baby dolls and dancing around and talking to everyone that got off the bus. The tradition is that men dress as “widows” and collect money to use for drinking that night. As we boarded the ferry that took us to Balta, the island with the airport, we all laughed and were confused by the men.
Photo by Sadie Roy
Luckily we were on the first of the three flights our group was on back to the mainland. The airplane back to Quito was much cozier than the one from Quito to the Galapagos, so most of us were able to sleep the whole flight. After we went through immigration, a bus took us back to our hostel. While we waited for the rest of our group to get back, we had time to finally relax and walk around Quito a bit. The next tradion we witnessed was everyone walking around the city with different masks and wigs. The masks looked like ones from the movie “The Purge”. We saw many men dressed as widows and dancing for money.
When the last flight finally arrived, we went to dinner as a group and met up with the Spanish students from SEMO. We ate at a night club and lounge in downtown Quito. We had a good variety of food for dinner including sausage, chicken, steak, a hot dog, French fries, and a salad. After we ate, we did some karaoke, starting with some Spanish songs by the Spanish group, and ending with Bon Jovi. After we all sang and danced, we all went our seperate ways at about quarter to midnight.
This is when we saw one of the neatest, in my opinion, of all the New Year’s traditions. Before the night of New Year’s Eve, people would make or buy paper mache dolls filled with saw dust and sometimes firecrackers. They are to resemble the past or someone in their past and burn them.
Left: photo by Morgan Williams
Right: We took this photo because the doll looks like my dad, Dan Cook.
On our walk back to the hostel, it was dark and rainy so we lost our way. We asked a kind man for directions and he couldn’t understand us so he tried getting us a taxi, but none would stop. Then a police car stopped and the officers told us to just get in so they could take us to our hostel. When it was almost midnight and 2018, the officers spotted a burning doll getting out of hand and had to stop to help put out the fire while we were in the back of the squad car still. It was quite an experience but we got back safely.
Photo taken from the back of a cop car.
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