Carnaval

There are many things I love about Ecuador, but carnaval has to be one of my favorites. It doesn’t really have a set date, it happens either in February or March, and it’s celebrated in different ways, depending on which region you’re at in the moment. I’ve always spent carnaval in the Coast, except for the very few moments in which I wasn’t in the country.

Carnaval is special to me for a lot of reasons, starting with my childhood. I was an only child up until I was 11, when my first sister was born. Before that it was pretty much only me and my mom. And I was a shy kid, it wasn’t easy for me to make friends, and even when I had friends, it was hard for me to be myself around them. The only time I truly enjoyed myself was with my cousins. I’ve always seen them as my sisters. Anyways, carnaval always meant we could go to our favorite place together, our grandparent’s hotel. It had a pool, a beach, tons of space and kids from other places, it was pretty much the greatest place we could be in. The first thing I should tell you about carnaval in the coast is that you’re going to get wet one way or the other. People throw water balloons, buckets of water, foam, all types of stuff. So if you find yourself in the coast on carnaval, don’t leave the house with your nicest clothes. Well, there you have it, the last thing children need to make carnaval the ideal holiday. We would spend the whole holiday on the pool, our mothers had to bring food over to the pool to get us to eat. We would wake up and go to the water, and we would stay there until they came to get us for the 14th time because it was getting dark. You’d think we would learn to pace ourselves after we would spend a couple days in pain because of our sunburns, but we never did. We loved it too much. I still have so many freckles all over my shoulders thanks to the sun we received in all of those carnavales. Everything was so simple back then, you know? When you’re a kid everything is so easy, you play when you’re bored, you eat when you’re hungry and you go to sleep when you’re tired. I think you can all relate to this feeling you get when you think about your childhood, like where did all that go? When did it all become so complicated? A little voice in the back that asks if you can go back.

With time, we grew up, and things started to change. Carnaval was no longer a holiday in which we played and ran around trying to get each other wet. We grew up and we started to party with our friends, which, make no mistake, made carnaval even better. All of the sudden we would spend carnaval drinking beer with our friends on the beach and partying at night. When it’s holiday in Ecuador, pretty much everybody stops working, and most people travel down to the beach, so it’s always fun because you usually get to see people you normally can’t see. Also, the last couple of years the country has gotten this habit of setting up free concerts at different beaches to attract tourists, and that again, made it so much better. It was at one of those events where I met my husband, and it was in the two days that followed when we got to know each other. It was funny really, we had friends in common so it was weird we had never met before that. In any case, it was by far the best carnaval I had. Not only did I met this awesome person, but it was four days and three nights of amazing farra*.

Carnaval in Ecuador holds nothing but happy memories for me. I can still picture myself, 10 years old, scheming on who we’re gonna throw balloons to next, pushing each other into the pool… it all comes back to me when I write about it. It really is my happy place, I can’t think about it in a negative way. Maybe it’s only interesting to me because it’s nostalgic, and you might not find it as interesting as I do, but there’s something about this place. Ecuador is magic. In ways I can’t really explain. It’s just something people need to experience for themselves. And you might be thinking it’s not going to be magic for tourists but I really do believe you’re going to love it even more, this can be the place where you free yourself from all the complications being an adult has. This can be your happy place as well.

* party