The Semana Santa Weekend & The Forcing Of Plan B: Papallacta!!!

Quito's Semana Santa Procession

Semana Santa is basically the term for Holy Week, which preceeds Easter in the Catholic calendar. With Ecuador being a fairly religious (okay, very religious country), specifically in the Catholic faith, everyone got a three day weekend to celebrate in style......Catholic style. My style however, was the beach. I had wanted to go to Canoa for quite some time. And with a three-day holiday this was the time to go. Unfortunately, the planning (first of all) - fell apart. We got to the local bus station to buy tickets too late and so all the Thursday night rides were gone. It didn't matter though, because on Friday afternoon - Jefferson from the La Guayunga Hostal (my Ecua-Brother) said he would take me in his mini-bus along with 10 other backpackers who quickly signed up. What this meant was - we had Friday morning free - and this particular morning (Good Friday) was special.

Semana Santa is known for it's big celebrations and processions, where people typically wear Nazarenos or a cloak and hood with a pointed top. It is the same design of clothing that the KKK adopted for their outfits, but these religious versions are generally of the purple coloured variety, or at least they were that day. The procession took place in Quito's Historic Old Town, which is basically where I live. A few nights ago we had seen the most bizarre musical production in one of the plazas. It involved some odd opera singing, mixed with dancing - which together told the story of Jesus. This procession was equally mesmerising. Hundreds off people walked the streets in purple KKK outfits, helped along with many locals dressed as Jesus - who would generally have to drag a giant wooden cross slung over one shoulder, through the streets of Quito. The crosses were often so large and heavy that people came in to help them. Then there were people dressed up as Romans and other oddly characters who would whip the Jesus paraders. Sometimes they would be whipped with vines, other times with ropes. Apparently it is a great honour to be chosen to act as Jesus in this procession. One guy was even in a wheel-chair and he was getting whipped too. Hundreds of people lined the streets to watch it, including me and half a dozen friends. The whole thing was most strange to someone who had never seen such a proceeding, such as myself - but I have an open mind so I managed to stay for well over an hour before all the whipping got to much for me to withstand. The other tradition during this time of year is to eat a special kind of soup - called Fanesca, which consists of 12 types of bean as far as I could work out. I was made some by the family at the hostal where I stay and it was very deliceous whilst being equally filling at the same time. It was certainly more healthy than the typical Easter Eggs that folk in my country of England eat during this time of year. Explaining the fact that we eat chocolate in the shape off eggs and bunny rabbits was probably about as bizarre to the Ecuadorians as it was for me watching a person dressed as Jesus parading through the streets getting whipped - so I guess we're even.

Later, we were finally ready to leave for the beach. That however, is when things started to go wrong. Actually that's not technically true - they started going wrong much earlier that day, when heavy rains had caused a large landslide on a road near the town of Santa Domingo - the same road which just happens to be the route to get to Canoa. This meant we would have to loop north past Mindo before heading back down (south-west) - and it thus would certainly add an extra three hours (maybe more) to our already 5 hour ride. After filling our bus up with all the backpackers - we set off for the shortest journey in history. No sooner had we set off than we realised the brakes were not working to full capacity. So back we went. There were many more buses at La Guayunga - they have tons of the damn things......but thats when the excuses came. I would have been happy if they had just said we couldn't go - but no, our hopes were raised and dashed a least four times with promises of another bus. One excuse followed after another, to the point of amusement - when we all decided we just wern't going to make it to the beach that weekend. With disappointment setting in - my good friends - Sarah and Kimberley, and myself decided how to salvage the rest of the weekend - and so we all decided pretty quickly......that Papallacta was our saviour!!!

Papallacta was a good alternative. It was a place I had wanted to go for a while. Its only a 90 minute bus ride away and can therefore easily be done as a day trip. Everyone that we spoke to who had been there said it was worth a visit, so, that Saturday morning - Sarah, Kimberley and myself went to see what all the fuss was about. Papallacta is a small modest town, situated at 3300m (asl) out in the Andes. The town would likely never be visited by tourists except that it has one special gift - thermal hot-pools which are dashed all over the place and which are also nicely heated (to about 40 Degrees Celcius) by the activity of the nearby Antisana Volcano. Because of its location and altitude, Papallacta has a general air temperature that is cold and hence the appeal of the thermal pools are that much more desirable.

Once we reached Papallacta, we naturally headed straight to a thermal watery location, getting out of the cold morning breeze and straight into the natural bath. Locals say the thermal waters in Papallacta have healing powers, but with the amount of local people that filled the pools soon after we arrived - I can't imagine any water so cramed full of kids could have anything healing about it. It was still very pleasant and we stayed for the entire morning though.

Later that day we checked out the town. There isn't really much to see there but it's setting (surrounded by Andean peaks) is pretty amazing. Before we took the bus back to Quito I did manage to have a typical Ecuadorian lunch which was made amusing by the soup. They are known to put all sorts of things into the soups here in Ecuador. Most are very tasty and you just have to move aside the unedible piece of meat that is floating in it. So, when I got asked which option of soup I would like, of the choices: A. Cows Hooves Soup or B. Chicken Soup, I naturally went for option B. I was then very shocked but not suprised to see chickens testicles floating in my dish. Sarah had great fun making jokes about my meal while I awkwardly tried to eat my soup, and avoid picking up a testicle by mistake. I don't normally play with my food - my mother always told me that was bad manners, but this eating escapde soon turned into the game.....dodging testicles - and there was three of them as well.......three!!! I can't say it was a meal I want to remember but equally it will be one I won't be able to forget in a hurry. With that in my mind, we headed back to the Capital. I still had one day left of the three day weekend - and I decided to do very little with it. Despite the many disasters that had occurred along the way during this holiday - there were moments in that weekend that will be thought upon with great fondness one day. One day far away it has to be said............but one day nonetheless.