El Cambio de las Estaciones: Party in Guapulo!

On Saturday night after returning from Otavalo, I went to a big celebration in a part of Quito called Guapulo. Before the celebration, I met up with a bunch of the people from our group and hung out at one of my friend's houses. We rode together and arrived at Guapulo, which is the area that is located along the side of one of my mountains. There were hundreds of people drinking and crowded together in the plaza in order to celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe. Lots of people were wearing crazy outfits (#tailgateliveson) like cow costumes, gorilla outfits, or strange masks. (Thanks to Tori Wilmarth for all of the photos!)


Blurry, but you can see some of the costumes

There was live music, but more importantly, there were a bunch of structures built out of pipes and wood. All of the structures had whirly-gigs (things that spun around in a circle) that had fireworks and sparklers attached. They lit the structures and ran through the crowd, showering everyone in sparks. Although it was really cool, some of my friends did get little burns from the crowd.

The big structure and la vaca loca (from behind)

At midnight, they brought out a really big structure, "la vaca loca" (a structure in the shape of a cow) and then a HUGE structure that was over two stories tall. After lighting the smaller two, they lit the huge one. Immediately the entire crowd started to run in a giant circle around the two story structure. I joined in with a bunch of my friends and ran around it while sparks went EVERYWHERE. At the very top of the structure, fireworks even launched! We need parties like this in the U.S.