The Children's Christmas Parade - Nino Viajero

El Pase del Nino en Cuenca

The 24th of December is very special in Ecuador because of the Children's Parade is held on that date every year.  It does not matter if you are in a large city, small town and a tiny village, they all celebrate this special event.  Here in Cuenca it was "scheduled" to started at 10:30AM.  The process of "getting in line" starts much earlier than that.  I heard from a friend that she had walked down to the staging area at 7:30 and there was about a mile of "floats" already in line.

Loved this "float" with all the hats as decorations

 

 

There were beautiful horses decorated for the parade 

Ed and I took a taxi down past our Super Maxi Grocery store to the traffic circel at 11:30 and walked up and down the street to see all the floats and kids.  The parade had not started at that time and we later learned it didn't even start until 2:30PM - that is what we mean by the "slow process" here and that means for everything.

It was the children that stole my heart.  Their costumes were darling and many have meanings: Joseph (wearing a curly blond wig), the three Wise Men, angels or in their many types of native dress.

 

These two boys were not together but their dress was the same

 

 

On the back of this float, a lady was roasting Cuy or Guinea Pig, which is a very local dish in Ecuador and Peru.

 

This beauty posed for me and enjoyed seeing her picture afterwards...

 

Here is the blond wigged Joseph - so cute.  I saw many wearing this same costume

There was just lots of waiting for the parade to start, these kids were on the back of a float.

 

Something to eat makes the time pass faster

We saw lots of children being fed to help keep them happy 

 

This float has music playing and this little guy was singing along

 

 

 

 

This little girl with the lolipop in her mouth reminded me of my granddaughter, Adrienne.

 

 

 

Looking down the closed street where they were staging for the start of the parade

Now this brings back some good memories - we owned a 1980 Busser and drove it across the U.S a couple of times....

 

I had walked down about a half of mile to see the floats and kids.  My foot was starting to cause me pain and that was a lot of walking for me.  We needed to stop and have pizza for lunch before heading back to the condo to allow me to ice my foot.

 

Loving our life in Cuenca... all is good,

Peggy