A good soaking

My last few days in Ecuador coincided with a national holiday, known simply as The Carnival, which lasted 4 days spanning a long weekend. This appeared to be unfortunate timing on our part as the formerly idyllic, peaceful lodge where we had stayed previously was now, upon our return visit, transformed into a place of utter chaos, being packed to the gills with Ecuadorian families all of whom had escaped Quito and headed up into the mountains determined to party like it was 1999.

To make matters worse, we were assured by the lodge manager that there would be grid-lock on all the roads and that we wouldn’t be able to drive anywhere during this holiday period. This turned out to be utter hokum and, I strongly suspect, a vain attempt on the part of the manager to convince us to remain hanging around the lodge and spending more money there, rather than venturing further afield.

One thing that the lodge manager told us did, however, turn out to be essential advice for the unwary driver in Ecuador during The Carnival. ‘Make sure that you close your car windows when you are driving through towns or villages’, she warned us cryptically, refusing to elaborate further. Often when you approach a sizeable village or small town by road in Ecuador you encounter what we refer to in the UK as ‘sleeping policemen’-concrete speed bumps intended to slow the traffic. Ecuadorian road maintenance crews seem to have taken this principle to extremes-the road bumps are usually so steep and jagged that driving over one at anything other than a crawl will result in the undercarriage of your vehicle being ripped off unceremoniously.

As we joined a queue of cars which had slowed down in order to gingerly ‘bump’ over one of these road obstacles it suddenly became obvious why we had been advised to close our windows. It turns out that one of the traditions of The Carnival is for people to lurk nonchalantly by these speed bumps trying to disguise the fairly obvious fact that they are holding a large bucket of water or a hosepipe. Suffused with the spirit of The Carnival, they then attempt to thoroughly soak the occupants of any vehicle who is slowly moving over the speed bump with their windows wound down! The amazing thing to me was that the people who got a good soaking in this manner seemed to take it all in good part. Coming from a country where if you forget to signal at a roundabout or forget to turn off your indicator light it can result in road-rage of epic proportions, I can only imagine the scene of carnage that would result if anyone was foolish enough to attempt to introduce such a merry water soaking tradition in the UK on August Bank Holiday Monday. There would be blood in the streets. However, in Ecuador a good soaking is all taken as part of the fun of The Carnival. Long may it remain to be the case.

DrB