New Year's Eve

Cuenca is supposed to be a fun place to spend New Year's Eve. There are effigies all over the city that will burn tonight, and we have heard that most of them will have fireworks inserted into them before they are ignited. Here are several pictures of them for sale, or prepared for ignition.

Here are a few masks for applying to effigies. Note also the fireworks for sale on the right.Action and cartoon figures are apparently popular.
These are just a tiny fraction of what was for sale. The idea is to add masks of someone you don't like, and send them up in smoke.Sonic the Hedgehog was being loaded on the car for ignition elsewhere.This one was just across the street from our apartment.Also, fireworks have been going off on a more frequent basis, and are expected to accelerate as midnight approaches. We have a party at church this evening, but we plan to be home before midnight, as our apartment is high enough to see all around, and we expect to have a great view of the fireworks from here. And then we can go straight to bed, rather than having to navigate our way home through streets filled with smoke and revelry.

Earlier today Samuel and I went to the market. As we were leaving, the bar on the corner was stocking up. Looks like they expect to do some business tonight.Samuel wanted to find some good Ecuadorian T-shirts to take home, but we didn't find any. However, we did see this girl who had just picked up her baby brother, who was crying. I asked if I could take her picture, and she seemed glad for me to.