Cultural day at Inti Pakari school and in Zamora

Emmett and Annalise's school celebrated "Dia de la Tierra", a Saraguro and Shuar festival celebrating the earth.    Emmett and John went to Zamora on Saturday for the festival and our friend, Jimmy, gave us a tour.  

Emmett teaching Angeles how to play chess

Emmett grinding fresh corn to make tamales

Teacher Berta explaining how to prepare the leaves to make tamales

A bowl of tamales ready to be cooked at school 

Javier preparing the fire to cook tamales

Everyone is enjoying tamales 

one of the fathers, Fernando, is cooking the tamales 

tamales just served 

Emmett and John went on a short canoe trip on the Zamora River

Jimmy and Emmett in the canoe 

a large stone face carved along the Zamora River bank 

Jimmy's friend let Emmett wear the traditional costume 

Emmett's birthday

We celebrated Emmett's birthday earlier this month.    His classmates sang "Happy Birthday" in English and we ate homemade cake at home.

Everyone gathered to sing Emmett Happy Birthday 

Annalise wishing Emmett a "Happy Birthday"

Annalise made Emmett a homemade bracelet in Sounders colors 

Itunes gift card from Grandma Landy 

Kwichua alphabet poster on their school wall    Emmett and Annalise are taught the indigenous language, Kwichua, at their school 

Baños

Our second (and final) stop with my mom was to the town of Baños, so named because of several spots with natural hot springs.  There is an active volcano very close by (which last erupted 11 years ago) that warms the mineral springs before they come to the surface.  The town has become a real tourist destination -- people come to soak in the springs, and to do all kinds of outdoorsy activities in the surrounding mountains and rivers.

My cute kids walking down the street in Baños

A cool painted stairway depicting the nearby waterfalls

This tourist map of Baños was up in the wall at our hotel.  As we were trying to decide what to do with our few days, I was examining it and came across...

The "Animal Prison" somehow did not sound super appealing.

The big church in Baños, on the other hand, is quite beautiful.  It is dedicated to a version of Mary who is something like "Our Lady of the Holy Waters," referring to the hot springs as a sacred place. On the walls of the inside of the church are lots of paintings of miracles that Mary has performed locally over the last few hundred years, many of them having to do with people falling into the rivers and being miraculously saved.  She also protects the town from the volcano.  The church is beautifully painted and decorated, and the exterior seems to be made totally out of volcanic lava rock.

The main sanctuary 

A shot of the intricately painted ceiling 

There is an attached convent (or monastery?) with a museum, which was closed when we were there, alas. 

 A little shrine to "Our Lady of the Rosary of Holy Water" at the side of the church

Lots of people come and light candles in some petition to her

A cool flower in the garden (shot courtesy of Emmett, our budding nature photographer)

The funnest thing we did in Baños (and probably inn 2017) was zip-lining at a place called the Puntzan Canopy.  It was insanely fun.  They start you out on small, rather tame lines -- and gradually work you up to longer and amazingly scenic lines.  It was raining the whole time and totally did not care, we were having such a good time.   Even my mom got in on the fun!

Riobamba

In the week leading up to Easter, we had the opportunity to travel a little bit.  My mom, Jayn Stewart, had the week off and was able to come down and join us!  It was great to see her, and the kids were in heaven hanging out with their grandmother.

Our first stop was a mid-size city called Riobamba, which is about 3-4 hours south of Quito by bus.  It is at high altitude like Quito (roughly 9,000 ft), and has some beautiful Spanish colonial architecture.

The old colonial Cathedral in Riobamba

Closer up view of the Cathedral's facade 

Government building on the Cathedral's central plaza 

The Catherdral plaza park 

We also wandered into the Museum of Religious Art, which I believe is an old convent -- beautifully preserved and restored.  It was a really nice little oasis of quiet within the city.

Central courtyard of the museum

Annalise (with her cool new poncho) and "Amma"

We were also lucky enough to see a religious parade that came by about a block away from our hotel.  Ecuador is a very Catholic country, there is really no sense of the American ideal of "separation of Church and State," and Holy Week is a big deal here.  This was an incredibly long parade, with people dressed up as religious personages and carrying figures of Jesus and a very sad looking Mary.  It was pretty graphic -- it definitely takes the Peeps and Easter Bunny out of the Easter celebration.     This is just a small sample of the parade -- it went on and on.  It was really interesting to see, and the kind of thing you would NEVER see in the US because religion is so relegated to the margins.

One of many people dressed up as Jesus carrying the cross 

The Jesus figure in the hot pink skirt is a real person, not a statue 

There were lots of marching brass bands playing somber music 

This float is carrying a statue of Mary holding Jesus' body 

These masked figures were everywhere in the parade -- I'm not sure exactly what they are supposed to signify (death maybe?), but I have seen pictures of them in other Holy Week parades in Ecuador 

Jesus and the two sinners being marched along by Roman soldiers 

Roman soldiers 

More real guys with hands tied to crosses, and Jesus lying down on the cross in the middle 

The military also got in on the action and had their own float... and the police too