lock the doors and roll up the windows

those were the instructions nancy gave as we made our way through the more seedy parts of guayaquil on the way to drive home a volunteer from one of the organizations nancy is a part of. while a great chunck of guayaquil has been reborn under the watch of the past two mayorships, the rest of the sprawling metropolis has beem mostly left to its own devices. and it´s somewhat disorienting driving through streets with little to differentiate themselves from their neighbours. on the main roads you can see where the city is trying to make their mark, fixing up basketball parks, planting trees in the medians and such, but it´s slow going.

speaking of sports, one of the most popular is volley, an abbreviated form of volleyball using three people and most of the rules of regular volleyball (except some wicked lifts), but without the actual ball. in its place is usually a soccer or basketball which makes for some interesting kill shot bounces. often it´s played on sand as there is tonnes of sand to go around, although i have yet to see women play the sport and therefore i doubt the ratings would be all that high if they put it on television.

also popular is footie (i don´t have a clue how they spell it, it would make sense to spell it the spanish way of futi but here they like using english words, like ticket and full, so they might spell it the way i wrote above). again, very similar to futbol or soccer, only with a smaller ball and usually on a concrete field that´s the size of a basketball court. the games are pretty hectic and rarely produce much artistic displays of passing, but it is fun to watch.

ok. the past few days have been a blur. on monday we did get to meet with james peters from rotary international, although our official meeting and dinner had been cancelled and we just didn´t know it. we were running late as it was, thanks to andy running out of gas on the interchange in midtown guayaquil. thankfully we had enough momentum to maneuver our way to a sidestreet but we were a good 15 minute walk to the nearest gas station. off andy went, with a guy whose name escapes me, and returned half an hour later with one gallon in tow. after sawing a plastic water bottle in half to act as a siphon, we were on the go - for all of like 10 minutes. this time we ran out of gas 100 yards short of a gas station. another gallon in and we´re off, past three gas stations to arrive at our home. i´m not sure if they tried to make it all the way to where they were going on one gallon or not but good on em.

yesterday we met with james (jim) peters at resaca, a trendy gringo bar restarant on the malecón.

Resaca Bar

the prices are pretty steep but the peters picked up the tab so i had a club café to start (a surprisingly nice beer, very clean with little aftertaste) and went with the menestra and rice (surprise surprise). i also had a glass of wine, a nice chilean white that jim picked out. very nice dinner indeed.

until i write again here is a link to another ecuador site with some wonderful pics of guayaquil.
Ecuador365

i´m off to peru tonight for the international ecoclubes meeting. we have a date with a bus at 1:30 am... ouch. not sure when i get back cause apparently the kids (who told me this today) want to extend our stay and head to the beach for a couple days. i´m glad i have this much advance notice (read 10 hours)... i´ll try to write more either in peru or as soon as i get back.

happy halloween!