Ecuador has a long tradition in festivals and fiestas. When you travel to Ecuador, you may participate in popular festivals, including the following:

CARNIVAL (CARNAVAL): (February / March)
It is a party in the Catholic nations of Latin America, which celebrate the last days before Ash Wednesday. The celebrations are with water fights and lavish parades. This is the biggest festival in Ecuador during which people fill streets and balconies hurling water balloons. This festival ends with big parties, music, dance, food, drinks, parades, bullfights, markets and tournaments.

CORPUS CHRISTI: (June)
It is a religious holiday. It takes place during the first half of June. This celebration is more popular in the highland towns, in the provinces of Chimborazo, Tungurahua, Cotopaxi and Loja, with ceremonies and dancing (dance procession), masked dancers dance throughout the streets and use high greased poles (palos encebados), in which paricipants have to climb and reach the top of it.

SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST (SAN JUAN BAUTISTA FESTIVAL): (JUNE 24)
It is celebrated in the Otavalo region and the surrounding highland communities, and it takes a whole week. This ritual is to honor Pachamama (Mother Earth). People dance in the streets during the nights and from one house to another, until they reach the chapel of Saint John. As soon they reach this chapel they start throwing rocks and stones at each other (ritual battles). People dress with varied costumes. This festival may have originated as a pre-Inca solstice celebration (festival of the sun and summer solstice) called Inti Raymi.

SAINT PETER AND SAINT PAUL (San Pedro and San Pablo): (JUNE 28 - 29)
It is celebrated across the country, in the province of Imbabura especially in Otavalo, Cayambe (town north of Quito), Cotacachi, and the surrounding highland communities (Chimborazo). Bonfires are lit in the streets on the festival eve and women who want to become pregnant jump over it. The patron of Cayambe is Saint Peter.

YAMOR FESTIVAL (FIESTA DEL YAMOR): (SEPTEMBER 1 - 15)
This is a big festival which takes place in Otavalo (highland) for the first two weeks of September. It is an annual festival with music, processions, dancing in the streets, fireworks displays, dressing up, drinking (chicha and alcoholic drink made of corn or yuca, cock fighting, bull fighting, firecrackers, and the crowning of the Queen of the festival). In the pseudo bullfights the bull is not killed and everyone is allowed to enter the ring, this takes place throughout the year in the Andean towns.

MAMA NEGRA FESTIVAL: (SEPTEMBER 23 - 24)
Mama Negra is a very important festival in the highland. This is celebrated in Latacunga in late September, in honor of the Lady of Mercy (Virgen de la Merced). This festival is celebrated in the street with dances, during which men dress up as black women, their faces are painted with black color. This is a pagan celebration.This festival commemorates the revolt of the black servants against their white masters.

VIRGEN DEL CISNE RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL: (SEPTEMBER 8th)
This is a religious festival and it takes place in Loja (southern Ecuador) in September. The sculpture of the virgin is known as La Churona (the curly haired one). Virgen del Cisne is a statue of the Virgin Mary, famous throughout Ecuador. This festival is celebrated with parades. This statue resides in the Gothic church of El Cisne, and people make three days massive peregrination through 200 km, from the city of El Cisne to the Cathedral in Loja with the statue in their shoulders, twice a year. This Virgin is carried back to the city of El Cisne in November.

DAY OF THE DEAD (DIA DE LOS DIFUNTOS): (NOVEMBER 2)
The first and second of November are very important dates in the indigenous calendar. First of November is the All Saints Day and the second of November is the Day of the Dead. People of the highland communities belief that the soul visits its relatives during these days, and they have to go to visit the cemeteries and prepare special food to be eaten by the souls and then the souls can continue further on its journey to the after life. People around the country prepare for this special day a traditional bread in the shape of dolls (guaguas de pan) and also a purple sweet drink with blackberry fruit and purple corn, called Colada Morada.

FESTIVAL OF THE VIRGEN OF EL QUINCHE: (NOVEMBER 21)
This festival takes place in Pichincha province. This festival is in honor of El Quinche Virgin. People go to churches in order to pray for miracles.