Dear Friends: Apologies to all who could not access my last Cañar Chronicles post, Carnaval – again! Unknowingly, I had “exceeded my bandwidth” (an image of ever-tightening pants comes to mind ), which meant I had run out of my allotted data transfer space. I’ve now been given a larger pair of pants by my web host in Portland, Host Pond, and should not have this problem again. Blog post is here
Thanks for being patient.
Dear Friends: Well, the big news is that Carnaval has come around once again. I’ve been documenting this spring fiesta celebrating the “flowering-of-the-crops” (called Pawkar Raymi) for many years, and although my photos begin to look the same, I try to find new details. Like this: each year a different community around Cañar “hosts” Carnaval. 
These two women, holding giant cuyes, or guinea pigs, represent this year’s host, and next year’s host. Or rather, I should say they are the wives of the men who are community leaders. Still a lot of sexism around here when it comes to women in leadership or political roles. They carried the cuyes all day long and sometimes put them down on little leashes to prance around, (or more likely run and hide – guinea pigs are shy).
For me, it is an exhausting all-day affair, beginning with a ritual ceremony/breakfast in the host community – this year way up in the mountains at a beautiful place called Shayac Rumi that Michael and I first visited over 20 years ago. 
...followed by a procession down the mountain (in a convoy of trucks) and then through and around town,
…and ending with an all-afternoon-into-the-night gathering for singing, dancing, eating and drinking at a big field outside of town. 
These women are resting after carrying the cuy-ñaña – a sort of cornucopia – on their shoulders for hours and hours. Covered with fresh fruits and vegetables, topped by a cooked chicken with a chile in its beak, with a hanging-upside-down rooster (no longer alive) and, below, caged guinea pigs and rabbits, it represents the largess of mother nature, or pachamama. The women are from the host community.
This year, for me, Carnaval was two days on the front lines because I am working with a great new partner, Allison Adrian, an ethnomusicologist who’s come from St. Catherine University in Minneapolis on sabbatical and with a Fulbright to work in Cañar for six months. Her interest is, of course, the music and the instruments used in this particular fiesta, but she is was also filming in video and that made me want to be her guide and at her side (which means keeping up with her…)
For years I’ve been giving out CDs or DVDs of my Carnaval photos to local organizations or participants who request them, but they invariably ask, “Where’s the music?” or “Where’s the dancing?” I have to explain that I work with a still camera, not moving pictures. With Allison, no more disappointment. Within a few days she had edited a 30-minute video of all of Carnaval, and this week we will give out DVDs.
(A true participant-observer, Allison gamely takes a sip of Zhumir – cane alcohol – from a cow’s horn.)
Back to details: perhaps what I love most are the faces. For Carnaval, men dress in finery I don’t see the rest of the year. Where do all these scarves come from?
And then there are these amazing sombreros that come out each year, carefully stored by the families and decorated anew with everything from cooked cuyes to a deer’s head.
Even this sheep sported a sombrero on its back.
I’ve known and photographed this particular condor (below, on right) for 15 years, as it slowly dries and loses appendages. This year, it was worn by the grandson of its original owner, my friend Pedro Solano (on left). 
..and with a new touch: a piece of chicken (maybe?) hanging from the condor’s beak.
All right. Enough of Carnaval for this year, except for one last photo, of a moment when two Taytas Carnavaleros stood on the edge of a precipice, tapping on those little drums as they would as long as Carnaval lasts, while the clouds come down around them. 
And now – time for CAñAR BOOK CLUB.
Dear Readers: I’m getting enthusiastic responses from many of you with suggestions for good books (see below). My own reading has taken a very positive turn with the visit of friends from Canada bearing prize-winning books by Canadian authors. All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews, is one of those books so riveting that you try not to read too fast, so it won’t be over too soon. I resist until bedtime, when I know I’ll only have 20 minutes of reading until I drop off. Others beside my bed: His Whole Life, by Elizabeth Hay, and February by Lisa Moore.
From other readers, with comments:
Thanks to all! Please keep those titles coming and tell me why you like them.
In Ecuador, the Frugal Traveler Tries Luxury
Cotopaxi volcano, south of Quito, Tony Cenicola
I forgot to mention in yesterday’s Chronicle that the New York Times’ frugal traveler, Seth Kugel, came to Ecuador a few weeks ago for his swan-song column, beginning by sleeping in a luxury hotel in old town Quito and ending in the tiny village of Quingeo, sleeping in a bed offered by a local woman. We don’t know Seth, although I’ve read him over the years and like his style of travel-with-unexpected-adventures (close our style of travel), but we do know the photographer the Times sent to cover his route: Tony Cenicola. Three years ago, Tony shot the story of our house, ” Up in the Clouds: A Second Home in the Andes” http://nyti.ms/1KyLtWt and spent several days with us.
We were happy to welcome him back to Cañar, as he followed Kugel’s route with a “shoot list,” and then to accompany him to Cuenca and Quingeo. We stopped for roasted chancho on the road to Azogues at Picanteria La Dolorosa (didn’t make the article)…
…got to be regular tourists in Cuenca,
…and visited this amazing little town we didn’t know existed: Quingeo, out in the middle of nowhere south of Cuenca. Tony roamed around and took photos, Michael sat on the plaza and had – what else? – a beer, and I drew one of the old houses.
For Kugel’s article, Tony’s beautiful photos, and maps, check out today’s NYT travel section (http://nyti.ms/1PIm0u2).