INT. J ROLAND KELLY - NIGHT

Two Saturdays ago, that being August 9th; well, let me start this way, there is a major avenue in Quito called the 10th of August (Av. 10 de Agosto), but I sometimes have trouble putting dos and dos together.

…Saturday, I go down to the lobby of my hotel and the woman behind the counter tells me there’s going to be a fiesta at six. I ask her, where? The hotel? She says no, throughout the old town.

Okay.

I go about my business; I do notice that they are setting up stages around El Centro (Old Town) and at six there was a very nice parade. It had period customs from Quito’s history, including women in pocahontas outfits. Got me?

One thing I didn’t understand, at the front of the parade were maybe five voluptuous cheerleaders on stilts.

Five voluptuous cheerleaders on stilts led the big parade. Why? In a parade about the history of Quito where else would they go; I guess.

There was a devil character in the parade, and it’s no secret that the devil has a big Spanish nose, but I’m just stating what everyone already knows.

So the parade was nice, and then it was over.

THEN THE REAL F***ING PARTY STARTED

I’ve been to a pre-deluge Mardi Gras, and this was just as big. There are only 1.4 million people in Quito, everyone must have been here in the Old Town, El Centro is not a small place.

This throw down was nothing less than the 200th anniversary of Quito being liberated from the Spanish.

I’m still not sure of the open container policy in Quito (later on, I did see people drinking wine in the street) so I Michael Jackson’ed it. You know, Jesus juiced it? Put it in a coke bottle.

I walked around the Old Town going from stage to stage all evening; a lot of stuff I didn’t understand. I think I saw people playing blades of grass, or some kind of leaf.

People had jumped the fence and were climbing on the statue of Mariscal Sucre, the hombre who defeated the Spanish in the final battle, and I did the same as it led to a better view of a stage. Gringolandia in Quito official name is Mariscal Sucre named after this field marshal.

In the absolute center of El Centro, the Grand Plaza, the oldest plaza, the first one, by the presidential place, they had set up projection monitors for a concert.

The entire plaza was filled with white plastic chairs.

It was an interesting contrast between the ancient plaza and modern technology, and after the concert was a fireworks display… they used the roof of the first cathedral in Quito as the base to launch the fireworks (this is also in the grand plaza).

I was close enough to see everyone on the cathedral sh!t their pants when fireworks exploded on the roof, as opposed to a few hundred feet above the roof. Ecuador needs to give the people who put that on combat medals.

This was the fireworks display after the concert; there would be a whole other fireworks display at midnight marking the actual 10th of August.

I was back in the Grand Plaza later on in-between shows, actually going to another stage, when El Presidente came out onto the terrace of the presidential palace for a smoke, or a photo opportunity, one. He came over to the edge and waved at the crowd for a few minutes.

The great thing about Quito is it celebrates itself often. There were Pre-Incan indigenous people here, then 100 years before the Spanish came, the Incas conquered, then so the Spanish couldn’t get it, the Incas destroyed the city, then the Spanish re-founded it, finally Quito was liberated from the Spanish.

Quitenos celebrate all this, although I hear the indigenous people don’t like the celebrations honoring the Spanish, you know because they’re not Spanish, and f*ck big noses.

I swear there are people here cheering on space aliens, and young uptown progressives cheering on the liberation of Quito from the space aliens.

More wine, please.

By 1:30 in the morning I was in Santo Domingo Plaza near my hotel dancing like a drunken madman. The entire plaza was a dance floor. It had started to rain and everyone was slightly wet.

Everything was breaking down. The one-two-three dance of salsa was turning into something tribal. People were holding hands and dancing in circles. Chinese vampires were standing in one place and hopping up and down. I, for some reason had dissolved into short jerky bluegrass movements.

Somewhere a Virgin Mary was crying real blood, and a stone Ganesha was drinking fresh pure milk.

Never in all my ever increasing years, has someone told me “hey, fiesta at six” and it turned out to be some kind of world super party.

Quito Luz de America - may God protect it.

-J Roland Kelly