Dinner, Anyone?

I have some fabulous guys out in my courtyard today, digging up all the weeks and other stuff that is making it ugly.  They're going to come back on Thursday afternoon to plant new stuff.  This is very exciting!

When I went out to answer a question Humberto had, I saw some kind of giant worm-like thing.  You might notice that I'm not exactly a gardener.  My technical knowledge stops right around needing to water things when it's dry.

Of course out came my camera.  Here are the beasties:

I put a key down there with them to give you something to compare them to.

Ah, they found another one.  Of course Humberto is much braver than I.  He just picks them up and tosses them over to the place where he's collecting them

Collecting them?  Yes, they're going to take them home with them.  This is a traditional food in the indigenous community.  Yep, they're going to eat them.  Humberto explained to me that they cut off the slightly fatter back half and throw that away and then eat the head and front half.  From the relatively translucent qualities of them, it appears that the back half has something like intestines ad/or poo in there.

I now know that they're call curso.  I tried to look it up on my Google Translate but there wasn't a translation for it.  When I asked, I found out it's a Kichwa word.  Kichwa is the language of the indigenous people here.  It's so beautiful to listen to.  It includes a lot of "sh" sounds and is almost musical.

I recently learned a bit of trivia.  In Star Wars, the language of the Huttites (as in Jabba the Hutt) is based on Kichwa.  They had this guy who could listen to a language for a period of time and then come up with narrative--it didn't include real words, just the sound of that language.

Watch for more landscaping photos and then it's time for Inti Raymi photos once again.

Good Friday in Quito

Yes, it's been a very long time since Easter (more specifically Good Friday) but I still haven't shared these photos with you and I truly want you to see the images of the day.

I recently learned that the procession that takes place through the streets of Quito is the second largest Good Friday procession in the world.  Wow--impressive.  Even more impressive are the sights the presented themselves that day.  There are two images that are almost haunting in their beauty.

Are these not the most amazing faces?  I just love both of them.

These fellows are called cucuruchos and there are hundreds if not thousands of them!  They have something to do with signifying penance.  I want to do a little more research but for now I'm just interested in getting the photos out to you.

I wish I could have gotten better photos but being in such a huge crowd made that nearly impossible.

There were dozens of men carrying crosses as Jesus did.  These were light and they carried the for three miles.  That's no small thing.

There were also floats carried by more penitents.  Again, they carried these for the whole three miles.

This is one of the largest crosses I saw.  It's almost impossible to see here but there are a couple of people helping him carry the cross.  Many of them have helpers but the men actually under the cross were obviously struggling under the weight.  We were much closer to the end than the beginning so no one was as fresh as they were a couple of hours before, when they first got started.

I don't know if you can see how old this man is but I would encourage you to enlarge the photo (just click on it) to get a feel for that.

Another of the floats.

This is a man portraying one of the thieves who was hung next to Jesus.

 I LOVE his face!

...and a final float.

It was an amazing day.  I still have photos to share but they're the odds and ends that didn't fit in with a specific day's theme.  Enjoy.

What a Beautiful Day

Yesterday was a fabulous day here in Cotacachi.  Of course, there are far more fabulous days here than there are challenging ones but yesterday seemed particularly good.

When the skies are clear (or almost clear) we get up to views of the mountains that are stunning.  I took this photo while pet sitting just a few blocks from home but you can see them from all over town. What a beautiful view!