Feliz Año Nuevo – Happy New Year 2025. New Year’s is an important holiday in Ecuador and other parts of the world. The tradition is for Ecuadoreans to say goodbye to the past year’s misfortunes, and make plans for the New Year by burning monigotes at midnight, symbolizing the past year. Monigotes are large dolls stuffed with straw, and sometimes fire crackers. This year, there were 29 neighborhoods who entered the annual Amistad Club Cuenca (Cuenca Friendship Club contest was judged by member clowns). The first prize wins $3k (Mutualista Azuay “Los Con Y Sin Camello”), second place earns $2k (El Vergel “Con El Apagón qué Cosas Suceden, Qué Cosas Suceden con El” ), third place wins $1500 (El Vado “Ecuador Neceita un Flautista”) and 4th place wins $1k (CDLA Tomebamba “El Jinete Del Apocalipsis Versículo 2024). This year, we were only able to see 3 of the 4 winners, largely to the rain that developed in the evening.
Of the 29 displays, we saw only a third of the entries. One was a pet park (top), where the poop would light up at night. There was another display with gladiators (center row and lower-left), but we had no clue what the message was. The 4th prize winner displayed the apocalypse theme (lower right). It was a unique city tour, seeing many neighborhoods surrounding Cuenca that we had not seen before.
This year, we hired a driver to take us to see some of the neighborhoods outside of el centro, and by 6 pm, many of the displays were still under construction with no signs installed yet. As such, the themes were not clear to us (Middle, Middle left, middle right). The central image depicts patients trying to jump out of the windows at IESS hospital (the local government run free hospital). Apparently, the wait times to get an appointment at IESS are so stretched out that many patients cannot get health care in a timely manner.
The structure to the right of the IESS Hospital is the city hall building with candidates/supporters of former president Correa (bottom and middle left). This past year, IESS was underfunded and unable to serve their clients effectively, since Correa took the money from the hospital to fund his other programs.
Surprisingly, Ecuador is ranked the 20th most efficient healthcare system among advanced economies, whereas the US is ranked at 46th place in the Bloomberg report. It appears that private medical care in Ecuador is quite affordable and relatively good quality, despite the many problems they have in the public system.
When we reached El Vergel around 7:00 PM, the sound system electronics had just fried due to heavy rains. Ironically, El Vergel won second place, with its theme “With the blackout, things happen”.
This past year, Ecuador won 5 medals at the Olympics in Paris, their most successful in summer olympics history with a gold medal in speed walking (bottom center), as well as 2 silver and 2 bronze medals in wrestling and weightlifting, Trump won the US election and is universally lampooned (upper right), Luisa Gonzales is an Ecuadorian presidential candidate supported by Correa (bottom left).
The Tele Terror monigotes (lower left) depict the time when armed men from the Mexican cartel took over the TV Station in Ecuador. Rosa Argudo, the union national secretary for IESS, which is the Social Security System for Ecuador, was investigated and fired for irregularities (lower right). Five of Argudo’s relatives who worked at the hospital were also investigated. Rosa was asked to justify how she could afford $900k of real estate located in Quito, Manta and Cuenca on her $1200 a month salary. It was pouring rain by 7:00 pm where Noboa is sitting on top of a volcano (top right).
A group of 10 expats friends celebrated together at Jodoco’s for New Year’s Eve dinner, which had a special menu for the occasion. It was delicious, starting out with a langostino appetizer and ending with some beautiful desserts. Susan, Sandy, Ellen, Evelyn, John, Julie, Don are shown in the photos at dinner. It was pouring rain while we were at dinner, but lightened up at the end.
After dinner, the rain was light enough to enable us to walk over to see the display at El Vado, the third place winner. The satirical theme was Ecuador needs a Pied Piper. The Pied Piper in this case is Rafael Correa (top left). The “rats” symbolize the corrupt government officials, and the ashes burnt leading to the Pied Piper. Guillermo Lasso, former president of Ecuador (bottom left) disbanded the National Assembly in 2023. There has been 4 Minister of Energy ministers in 10 months due to drought, and the latest is Andrea Arrobo, a hydrogen specialist the first woman to hold the post. We recall the reign of silence when Correa was in power, when his critics were silenced, thrown in jail, and heavy fines were imposed on satire during the New Year’s Eve festivities.
The people in Cuenca are quite politically aware, so they poke fun of the system at festivities such as New Year’s Eve and the Mascara Parade (Fool’s Day). Daniel Noboa, President of Ecuador, is shown with the King Felipe VI of Spain in his recent visit to Cuenca in November for the Ibero-American Summit (bottom right). Typical Monigotes available for sale (middle right).
Even with the rains, the crowds showed up. Families came together to start up the new year, some carrying their Monigotes to be burned at midnight. Our Irish friend Ellen was poking fun at the leprechaun (Lower left).
Our Santa in front of the lit Christmas tree at San Francisco Plaza was adorable (center). Burt is flying his drone to videotape the Christmas tree(top left), Julie, John, Burt and Evelyn getting ready for the countdown (bottom middle).
We had heard that globos (hot air balloons) were illegal in Cuenca after two churches burnt down a decade ago, yet here they are being launched at Parque Calderon. There were plenty of police present, but no attempt was made to stop the floating balloons of flame.
Because of the heavy rain, we watched fireworks from our apartment window and toasted with champagne to welcome in the new year.