Anos Viejos

Ecuador has a really cool tradition for New Year's. They make or buy these paper mache statues and then burn them at midnight on New Year's Eve. Crazy, right?! But these statues are called anos viejos, which means "old years". The idea is that they burn the past or the old year and start fresh for the new year. I kind of like that. I mean, the thought of a lot of intoxicated Ecuadorians lighting stuff on fire at midnight makes me a little nervous, but the idea really is nice! Ha!

But what I really liked was looking at all of these statues all over the city. You can find almost any cartoon character you'd like in all different sizes. In fact, some people make these really huge ones and we got to ride around and take photos of them. Some were bigger than a 3 story building! For example, my favorite was the King Kong one. They had arranged it so that you could climb a ladder into his hand. Then, the photo looks like King Kong is grabbing you! So cool! They also have some that are different politicians here in Ecuador, and we even saw a few Obama ones, too. Ha!

But, of course, the most popular one for this year was Michael Jackson. Ha! So, when Wilson asked me which one I wanted, I quickly decided on Mikey. It certainly reminded me of Ecuador the most. So, we bought a small one. I didn't want to have to burn him, but Wilson said it's bad luck to buy one and then not burn it, and I certainly don't want bad luck, soooo...I guess Mikey will have to die twice in 2009.