Landys In Ecuador: Who's that albino Saraguro boy dancing at Inti Raymi, the Saraguro people's biggest dance festival of the year?

Emmett and the dance troupe have danced at quite a few different exhibitions in the past few months. All in preparation for a dance competition held during Inti Raymi, the Saraguro people's biggest festival of the year. Inti Raymi is held annually in the city of Saraguro, which serves as the cultural center for the estimated 30,000 Saraguro people who live in Ecuador. The event celebrates the summer solstice and Saraguro culture with a pageant and a dance competition. Young Saraguro women compete in the pageant based on talent, beauty and demonstrated ability to speak Kichwa, the indigenous language of the Saraguro. The festival takes place in an outdoor arena with a large stage where the pageant takes place and a center court for the dance competition.

Emmett was excited to travel to Saraguro with his friends and we said good-bye to him in Guadalupe at 2 pm on Monday afternoon. The dance troupe rented a medium-sized bus for the 4-hour journey from Guadalupe to Saraguro. The bus transporting the dance troupe drove directly to Saraguro via the highways leading to Loja. Annalise, Kate and I decided to try a different route because traveling to Saraguro by public bus takes considerably longer than the 4 hours Emmett would travel by private bus. We boarded a bus to take us north to Yacuambi shortly before Emmett left on his bus. A few miles after leaving Guadalupe, the roads are no longer paved which is often the case for less-traveled roads that wind through the mountains. Ninety minutes later, we reached Yacuambi and purchased tickets for the connection to Saraguro. We had an early dinner and strolled through downtown Yacuambi. At five pm at the scheduled departure time, we learned that we would be traveling not in a bus, but in a pickup truck. A woman and her young daughter shared the front seat of a medium-sized Chevy Luv pickup truck and the three of us and a Saraguro man squeezed in the back seat. Another woman and her daughter paid a discount to ride in the pickup bed with the luggage for a shorter passage. So began the next leg of our adventure. Within a few minutes, we were driving on bumpy dirt roads. For two hours we ascended a mountain in the Andes and then descended for an hour to Saraguro. The road was very narrow and at times I looked out the window to see how many inches of road separated us from a descent down a cliff (with no guard rail). There was a solid hour when we traveled in a cloud and the visibility was very poor. Thankfully, there was no risk of speeding because the potholes in the dirt road required that we travel 3-5 miles per hour. Kate and I needed to hold on to the truck to avoid getting jostled too much. The taxi driver estimated we were about 2800 hundred meters high. There was no cell phone service and I am sure with the cold temperatures and damp, cold climate any mechanical or road passage difficulty would have been a serious problem.

Needless to say, we descended safely and met Emmett and Diego in the center of Saraguro shortly before 8 pm. Annalise joined Emmett and the dance troupe while Kate and I checked into our hotel. Although Kate and I anticipated that there would be a delay in starting the dance festivities after the scheduled time of 8 pm, we still managed to wander on foot in Saraguro after a few imprecise directions to the "Lagunas", where the Inti Raymi festival is held. After approaching a bus we thought belonged to Emmett's dance troupe, we managed to hitch a ride that took us directly to the festival. When we arrived musicians were playing traditional music on the stage and the pageant soon began. Dance troupes arrived from all over Ecuador and everyone seemed excited for the festivities. Fireworks celebrated the start of the traditional dancing and it seemed a perfect night to party. I visited Emmett in the group's changing room and everyone was excited to be practicing. Patty, the leader of Emmett's dance troupe, was practicing a required introductory speech in Kichwa. Kate and Annalise were seated in a covered section of seats with mostly Saraguro elders and their families. Any nervous anticipation we had for Emmett eventually turned to feeling cold and restless. Emmett was having fun with his friends while the three of us waited in the colder temperatures of Saraguro's high elevation. And then it started raining. Saraguro traditional clothing consists of much wool, none of which we were wearing coming from the lower Andes foothills. I managed to find someone with a car to take Annalise and me back to the hotel at 12:30 am. Kate remained at Lagunas to wait for Emmett to dance. Starting at 2 am, Emmett's dance troupe completed six dances in two sets and Patty made a speech in Kwichua. Emmett and Kate returned to the hotel at 2:30 am and the rest of the dance troupe returned to Guadalupe by van via Loja. They arrived in Guadalupe at 6:00 am and most of the dancers had to go to high school that day.

Emmett, Annalise, Kate and I spent a few hours the next day shopping in Saraguro for some traditional clothing for Emmett. We were in a traditional Saraguro clothing shop and spoke with the owner of the shop. After we told him that Emmett danced at Inti Raymi, he laughed and remarked that he thought Emmett was an albino Saraguro boy. Quite a testament that the Saraguro community in Guadalupe has welcomed Emmett. If he managed to join a dance troupe in the US and demonstrated such commitment I would have been very proud. It is amazing how both of our children have adapted and established themselves in a foreign country.

After shopping and lunch we boarded a comfortable bus in Saraguro at 1 pm. Within 10 minutes of our return journey, the bus broke down. We waited on the side of road and another bus from a different transport company arrived and we boarded to successfully return to Guadalupe. All of us were exhausted for two days. Annalise endured some very difficult traveling and a very late night. She proved herself to be very resilient. Emmett rallied on Wednesday night for another dance exhibition at a talent show in Zamora on Wednesday night. Kate and I never expected to be so worn out by our children's activities calendar in a foreign country.