Cuencanos ring in the new year with music, fireworks, burning dummies and drink while the dogs go wild

Cuencanos celebrated the new year Wednesday night with concerts, fireworks, the burning of año viejo monigotes and plenty of holiday drink. The largest party was at Parque Calderon where celebrants were treated to musical performances on the big stage in front of the government building.

A pile of año viejo dummies burn on Calle Larga.

By midnight, the crowd was so large it spilled down calles Mariscal Sucre, Simon Bolivar and Luis Cordero. “In 20 years, I have never seen a New Years with this many people,” a Telerama reporter said as he attempted to navigate through the masses. “It is shoulder-to-shoulder through the entire park and up and down the streets,” he said.

He added: “There must be 20,000 people here, but it could be many, many more. Maybe 30,000.”

The scene at Calderon was repeated on a smaller scale at a dozen smaller plazas and park throughout the city.

The reporter said he witnessed two people hit by small hand-held rockets, which he said “were all over the place, some of them carried by children, and very dangerous.” The injured were treated at an ambulance parked near the concert stage on Luis Cordero.

The bands played until 3 a.m. on the big stage in Parque Calderon.

All over the city, Cuencanos burned dummies and observed the tradition of jumping over the burning pyre three times.

During the day Wednesday, it will be hard to miss the street vendors peddling grapes and yellow underwear, both said to bring good luck in the new year.

A common story traces the tradition of the twelve lucky grapes, or uvas de la suerte, to grape farmers in Alicante, Spain, who cannily suggested the idea when they had a surplus harvest to unload in the early 1900s. Other sources trace the tradition to the 1880s, claiming it was adopted by Madrid’s bourgeoisie, copying the French custom of drinking champagne and eating grapes on New Year’s Eve.

The origin of the tradition of jumping over the burning año viejo minigotes is widely debated, with a variety of explanations offered by historians. What is clear is that the jump carries risks since some dummies are stuffed with fireworks that can go off mid-jump. Celebrants, especially those who have had too much to drink, sometimes misjudge the jump and land in the fire. Others have been known to be treated to pyrotechnic enemas.

A celebrant jumps over burning dummies.

Emergency rooms of Cuenca hospitals were prepared for heavy traffic in the early hours of January 1.

Another, more recent tradition of the New Year’s celebration is Cuencanos and some expats complaining on social media about the effect of midnight explosions on their dogs. “I have to sit in the closet holding her during the fireworks,” wrote one Cuencana on a Facebook page. “If I leave her out she goes absolutely crazy and will chew up all the furniture in the livingroom.”

In another post, an expat asked where she could take her dog where there would be no fireworks. The answer according to one responder: “Nowhere! It’s even noisier in the little towns and the campo. Hug your dog tight and grin and bear it.”