Cuenca’s Independence Day is November 3, which is the day the city declared independence from Spain in 1820 (Quito had declared in August and Guayaquil in October earlier that same year).  This is such a major celebration here that it actually covers 4 days — from November 1 through November 4 each year.

Today started the celebration, and was a full day for us.  It was a nice change from the bust of Halloween.  Though Mexico goes all out for Halloween, it is not really celebrated in Ecuador.  We saw a total of one child dressed up in costume, and she was crying, apparently not happy to have her mother force her to be different from everyone else in town.  We heard of teenagers dressing as zombies and ghouls, and our neighbor got one photograph of 3 teens dressed that way, but we struck out.

Mexico celebrates Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) with big festivals on Nov 1, but here it is strictly a religious occasion. However, the Independence Day festivities gave us plenty to see and do.

After breakfast at home, we walked over to the Parque Otorongo, where we had seen a large number of vendor tents being set up the last couple days.  Unfortunately, this was a bust, with nothing but cheap trinkets and junk being sold.  Very disappointing start.

We then walked towards Parque Calderon, and came across a High School parade going down the street next to the park.  We watched it go by for roughly half an hour — it was pretty good for a high school group.

We then continued walking around the park, and came across the most unusual painter we have ever seen. He made masterpieces using only spray cans of paint.

Here are a couple finished examples that he had next to him for sale:

Continuing our walk around the park, we came across a fair sized crowd around a pavillion with a very nice male singer blasting some darn good music.  We couldn’t really get very close, and it took awhile to even spot the singer.  And were we ever surprised!  There was a boy not more than 7 or 8, belting out the music while dancing up a storm.  At first I thought it must be Kareoke, but no, that really was a small kid with all the moves and sound of a teenage heart-throb.  When he finished, the crowd erupted in applause.

That is him in the center, barely visible over the heads of the crowd.

As we continued wandering around the park, we could see the park filled with families enjoying the warm sunny day of festivities.

We next decided to walk over to Parque San Blas to see what was there.  (We were supposed to go there last night, but got turned around and ended up at another park at the other end of town…). Though there were no official festivities there today, we found another very nice park, with two large churches, and a large fountain with kids playing in the water.

We finally turned back towards the Simon Bolivar Spanish School for our 2PM class.  This was my last class (I need to start doing some LeapFrog work next week), though Evelyn will be continuing for a couple more weeks.  Her instructor took her out on the street as part of her class, where they found folk dancers on Plaza Santa Domingo.

Both our Spanish instructors told us that the Otorongo Plaza artisans were “not the real thing” and that we really needed to go see the Artesanias de America.  This is a multi-national pavilion of artisans along the river, maybe a mile from our apartment on our same road.

We arrived to find a military band playing some suprisingly good music — not what i normally associate with a military band at all.

We walked around the various artisan booths, and were much more impressed.  These were artisans every bit as good as the best street fairs ever bring out in the States.  Evelyn ended up buying a new handmade belt, and a gift for her sister — can’t reveal what is was, since she reads this blog… 🙂