Quito

The next weekend (October 9-11), Slocomb and I went to Quito for the Ecuador-Urugay soccer game. If Ecuador would have won the game, they likely would be going to the World Cup. Unfortunately, Ecuador lost (2-1 on a penalty shot in stoppage time), and they lost the next game too. So they are out of World Cup contention. I guess I just gave away the ending, but the trip is still pretty cool.
We had Friday the 9th off of school to celebrate the independence of Guayaquil (in 1820, I think), which was really nice. I had been coming down with a cold, and Friday I was pretty sick. Unfortunately, our bus left for Quito at 10pm on Friday, whether or not I was sick. I spent most of Friday in bed, but managed to rally about 7:30 to pack and then go.
Once we got to the bus, we met some of the other people in our group going to the game. Most of them were male, about our age, and spent most of the weekend drinking. I guess that's the advantage of being in a tour group with a bus; you don't have to drive, and you don't even really have to be coherent enough to talk to a taxi driver.

Anyway, after some introductions, I managed to conk out for most of the trip to Quito (all 8 1/2 hours of it). I woke up every once in a while when we hit huge bumps in the road or when we would stop (about every hour) at a gas station so the driver could smoke or get more soda or something. Slocomb unfortunately didn't sleep much on the trip up to Quito, but he also wasn't sick.

(This is how I felt a lot of the time)

We arrived in Quito about 7am. We thought that we were going to go straight to the stadium, but luckily we got to go to the hotel first. A lot of people took showers, but I just took a short nap. Slocomb made use of the included breakfast.

In any case, we arrived at the stadium about 10:30am. On the journey between the hotel and the stadium, a local news crew came aboard our bus because they were doing a special about fans who had traveled a long way for the game.

(Our group being filmed by the TV network)

It ended up being a 3 or 4 minute spot on the Sunday night news, and Slocomb and I weren't in it. But we are in the archives of an Ecuadorian TV station somewhere. I also managed to learn one of the most important songs for the afternoon: "Vamos, Ecuadorianos. Esta tarde, tenemos que ganar!" (Or "Let's go, Ecuadorians. This afternoon, we must win). The other songs had a lot more words, so I didn't end up learning them.

(one of our new Cuencano friends, Nelson)

The gates to the stadium opened about 11:30, and we found seats with a bunch of the Cuencanos about noon. Then we only had to wait for five hours for the game to start. Yay!
I spent most of the afternoon in the tunnel between the gate/bathroom and the stadium because it was nice, cool, and quite there (and close to the bathroom). Slocomb spent his five hours making friends with the random people we were sitting next to (not the Cuencanos), sharing $2 liters of beer and playing drinking games. Interestingly, the stadium food (and beer) wasn't expensive (even on Ecuadorian standards). It was mostly traditional-ish food - salchipapas (hot dog and fries), other kinds of papas (potatoes) with random seasonings, and chifles (fried plantain chips). They also had hot dogs with tons of toppings that looked really good. I didn't end up trying anything because I was just too sick. I ended up eating a little of the trail mix that we brought and half a sandwich. And a lot of sprite.
The vendors at the game were also interesting to me. Many of them were dressed in indigenous dress. The beer vendors (almost all women) would go around with a basket full of beers (only Pilsener, the national brand), cups, and chunks of ice. When you bought a beer, they would cool down the cup with one chunk of ice (reusable, but not super sanitary) and then serve the beer with another chunk of ice. Also, the way that they poured the beers meant that a lot of the foam went up into the bottle (making the ice necessary to fill the cup). Not super efficient, but very interesting.

The game started about 5 (not sure what time it really was, but we'd been waiting long enough). When the Uruguay team came out, most of the fans yelled some less than polite things, but what do you expect? Also, there was much throwing of toilet paper in streamer fashion and also throwing things at the police. The vendors were very careful not to let the fans get a hold of the glass beer bottles, which was very lucky for the police. For more stories about the craziness of the fans, see Slocomb's blog.Ecuador scored a goal a few minutes into the second half. All was crazy. Everyone was yelling, many crying, hugging, and spraying stuff over the crowd (rain coat came in handy at this point). It was an incredible moment of joy for everyone in the stadium. But less than a minute later, Uruguay scored. And at the end of the game, Uruguay was awarded a penalty kick to end the game that they made. So the Ecuadorian goal was a brief moment of glory in an otherwise disappointing game. But it certainly was an experience.
After the game, we met up with my friend Robert from Emory who is studying abroad in Quito this semester. He wanted to take us to a place that had crepes and waffles, but it was already closed (probably because Ecuador lost). We ended up just getting pizza (because the stadium is in a part of town with a lot of American food - TGIFridays, Papa Johns, KFC, McDonalds - all with American prices), but it was really fun to get to see Robert.
We decided not to go out that night because I was still sick and Slocomb was dead tired. We essentially just went back to the hotel and slept until the next morning. We unfortunately left Quito about 9am, so we didn't get to see any of the city. I want to go back soon so we can spend time there.

The ride home was quite fun. We drove past Cotopaxi (the famous volcano) and got to see tons of the countryside.

(Cotopaxi with snow on top)

The whole trip we were on the Pan-American Highway (that goes all the way from Alaska to Chile). However, it wasn't like we were on the interstate. Its not a restricted access highway, so there were towns every few minutes and restaurants just along the roadway. We stopped in one town, Salcedo, because it is where everyone in Ecuador gets their ice cream. I'm pretty sure you can buy ice cream from Salcedo in Cuenca (at least 7 hours away). The turn off from the Pan-American highway into Salcedo has a statue of ice cream (sorry no pics). I got a mixed flavored ice cream that had vanilla, mora (mulberry) and naranjia (a very tart sort of orange thingie). Slocomb got avocado. They were both incredible.

We also stopped in another small town for lunch. I don't remember the name of the town, but it was memorable because of the huge statue of Jesus on the tallest point of the town.

(statue of Jesus near where we ate lunch)

The highway runs above the town, so we got to look down into the valley and see this huge statue.
Besides that, the trip was mostly just long. Very long. But it was worth it to get to see Ecuador play (and experience everything that went along with it) and to be able to see almost the whole sierra of Ecuador.