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Well we did end up spliting up yesterday so we might as well write seperate enteries. I was quite pleased with my plan to be all peaceful and lazy and grabbed my book and sat outside our hostel and read for a few minutes in the sun. I decided to add a little people watching to my busy schedule *which consisted entirely of meeting Hil at a coffeeplace at 3* and headed for the main busy touristy street where we are staying. It was sunday and still pretty quite and who did I run into but Jeff. He was maybe meeting up with a guy to go see a football match *yes soccer* His friend didn't show but he invited me to go and I figured I could handle activity as strenuous as spectating.
The cab to the stadium was about half an hour and when we got there the streets were packed. We bought some tickets off a woman in the street and ran around trying to figure out where our section was. When we got in the stadium was packed. There was a big rivalry between the two teams, quito and Guayaquil, and of course most of the people there were wearing white for QUito. THere was one section directly across from us that was totally insane. On the upper level the stands were filled with the away fans, all wearing yellow, and below them were the home fans. THroughout the game they were screaming and jumping up and down and throwing things at eachother and trading insults. Not a whole lot happened during the first half except I learned that soccer players are such babies and fall, actually dive, and roll around if a feather touches them. Also I was highly entertained by Jeff yelling "b******s" and "that guy is a w***er". THe action picked up in the second half and when it became evident the home team was spanking the away team the insults and debris throwing increased. THe fans would suddenly break into crazy chants and songs and everytime their team passed the ball they would taunt the other team by screaming "ole!". Also, everyonce and awhile a specific drum beat would occur and all the fans would run down the stands and then run back up. Weird. Through out all this there were police in full riot gear present and at one point they got between the players on the field. When the game was over the police spilled out through the enterance/exit to the yellow section, they are seperated, and all the away fans swarmed away. THen they got daring and charged the police and threw stuff at them and the police retreated and then the police would charge etc etc and the game of cat and mouse continued. I can see how these things sometimes degenerate into riots but it was deffinately fun.
After the game I went and met Hil and the poor girl was coming down with a cold. We went back to the room to rest for a few hours before meeting Jeff for dinner. We had our first sushi since leaving and it was pretty decent. Of course we went back to the Canadian owned bar, shooters, for a couple drinks. Hilary was of wiser mind than me and went home early while I stumbled in late and as a result got pretty much no sleep and am veeery tired today. I am dreaming of how relaxing columbia is going to be, and of beaches, and tanning, and drinks with tiny umbrellas. Wish us luck with the boarder crossing tomorrow!
Erika
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