New Years in Quito

After rescuing us from the chaos of La Mariscal – the touristy section of Quito also known as “Gringolandia”, Tania’s parents bought us back to their house in the north of town. La Mariscal was about what you would expect in any capital city on New Years – cheap beer and loud music filling the air. The rest of Quito was different.

Several times on the way north we were stopped by gangs of viduas or widow. These are men dressed as mourning women who ask for money so they can afford to cremate their husbands—the old year. I was told that they used to dress in black and act solemn. Not anymore. Most of them were provocatively dressed and, to be honest, funny as hell.

Tania’s poor father bore the brunt of it. He was a kind man, with silver hair, who used to be a professional race car driver. (He drives like he still is.) The assorted viduas flirted with him mercilessly, telling him that they found his silver hair sexy and that they wanted a silver haired old guy to take care of him. One guy got his money then told us that he tricked us. The money was for his liposuction. A few pennies were always enough. It seemed to be more about having a few laughs than making any money.

As we got closer to their house, they viduas set up roadblocks and you had you to pay to pass – again, it was more about laughing and teasing than any real quest to get rich. We also stopped to get a dummy to burnin effigy. Again, Tania’s poor father bore the brunt of that as Tania found a mask for the dummy with silver hair, a moustache and glasses—just like her father.

I was lucky to have ended up at Tania’s. Her mother makes an excellent turkey, and the rest of the meal was gorgeous as well. They were such graceful hosts. Despite a pretty significant language barrier, I felt entirely at home, and it was the best meal I had eaten since I have been in Ecuador. Along the way, I learned the finer points of rose farming and the virtures of Liga (a soccer team) from her uncle and learned a bit about engines from her father.

After the meal, Tania and I headed out. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. By this time, the widows were a bit more …celebratory (read as: Drunk). They had graduated from a bit of flirting to full on sexy dancing.

However, on one street it was totally outrageous. The viduas group up into teams – dancing around, flirting and putting on a hell of a show. However, things went exactly as I feared they would—twice.

The first time, one of the guys heard me speaking in English to Tania. He spoke English – and used to live in New York. Soon I was surrounded by gangs of transvestites telling me how sexy my accent was and that they loved me so much. I hate to admit this, but it entirely cracked me up. Their lines were hilarious. They loved me, they wanted to marry me and have me bring me back to the states. We took a few pictures then took a swig from a bottle of some cherry flavored liquor.

The next stop was a bit more embarrassing. Tania gave one of the dancers a bit of money and told him to dance with me. He grabbed me, pulling me out into the middle of dance floor—with everyone watching. When I hesitated he started screaming in English “I am beautiful, you must love me. Dance with me, I am beautiful.” Some of you know that I have a bad case of “white guy hips”. I can’t shake my stuff to save my life. That did not stop him. “You love me. Dance and show me you love me.” Eventually, I was sore from laughing so hard. I made him go get Tania and dance with her for a dash of revenge—which, frankly, did not work. She is too much of a Quiteño. (The picture of the guy in the white dress and red belt is the dance partner in question.)

The night ended with the countdown to the new year. Quiteños countdown the end of the year by stuffing grapes into their mouth. You make a wish on each grape. If, in the last 12 seconds of the new year, you can get the 12 grapes in your mouth, the wishes will come true. Also, just before the new year, they light the effigy and let off fireworks. So I ended the new year with a mouth full of grapes, smoke filling the air, and the remains of lipstick from hordes of lonely widows, looking for love.