Fiesta fiesta

so it develops that it happens to be the beginning of the fiesta season here. its a vestige of indigenous tradition celebrating the summer solstice. after conquest the spanish adopted the festival and changed the focus to san pedro. stuart just told me a couple of days ago that id get to be in the beginning of the fiesta and this stuff starts before dinner and goes until 5 or 6 in the morning. lots of traditional dancing and live music and old folks walking around handing out trago and chicha (the funky corn-derived chewed and spit up fermented drink... were all thinking about how good that sounds arent we?). theyre making me a traditional shirt with my name on the back, ill be renting some funky goat skin pants, and picking up another fedora (hopefully). we also picked up a charrango, a miniature guitar with strange tuning that i cant figure out yet that i hope to learn by tuesday after next. ill fit right in except for being a foot taller than everybody.

so friday i moved in with my family and had every intention of staying there that night but the brother of the father of my host family insisted on checking out one of the early fiestas in the nearby town of cayambe (city of the sun). its at the foot of the third highest peak in ecuador capped with snow. well be making a trek as far up as we can go without freezing our toes the coming weekend. anyway, we went to cayambe and started drinking around 4 and danced all night long (which is really just until 9 or 10 here). we ended up riding in the back of a busted truck back to the fundacion. once we got back, we had a great discussion with the driver about why volunteers want to come to work. needless to say, i didnt make it back to my host familys house that night.