Guayaquil day 2

Sorry for the delay...

Katherine and I woke up late that next morning and hung out in the room until we got word from Dan and Melea that they had arrived in the city. Dan and Melea both teach in Guaranda, and their´s is a university that caters very intentively to them, providing them with their every need...for example...each of them was bought a cell phone, a laptop (that´s right, a laptop), and a private car was driven to Quito to take them to Guaranda so they didn´t have to take the bus. So I was only slightly surprised when they told us that they had a university-paid private driver for the next two days that had driven them over to Guaya. We promptly took advantage of this luxury by...telling him he could go and not seeing him again until the next day...

We began the day by walking over to the Malecon, stopping at a pretty sweet cathedral on the way, seeing all the catholic stuff...blah blah blah...and then going to get LUNCH! We ate at this seafood place where I had crab and shrimp ceviche which was pretty good. Ceviche is a typical dish here where they use fish and lemon juice in this soupy mixture and somehow, don´t ask me I ´m not a cook I´m an english professor, the lemon juice "cooks" the fish...weird...but good.

Our tour of the city then continued with us walking back to the Malecon and seeing the Southern half, which we had not yet seen, walking through the non touristy center of the town, where the legit markets and stuff were, and then heading back to the Iguana infested park...On our way, however, we had an experience that was for many reasons memorable, not the least of which is because it shows that, no matter how diverse the world is, there are certain things that are the same everywhere you go.

While walking past sellers shouting at us to buy their pluma gear (that´s right, not puma, pluma) and fruit, which is apparently not at all an odd combination to have at an ecuadorian store, we noticed that we were behind a pair of women, one of whom had been very richly blessed by our Lord in the hindquarters region. Suffice it to say...the sellers promptly forgot about us, and it was fascinating to see the wave of reactions that were caused by this one woman walking down the street. And, before you get all anti-chauvanistic on me...this was a woman who was making it painfully (gloriously?...HA, joke...kind of) obvious that she had been blessed, and knew about this blessing, and didn´t want to slap God in the face by hiding said blessing. Anyways, her passing created a moment of community among every man that had witnessed this event, regardless of status, nationality, occupation, or age. We got, and my friends (not me, as stated in the previous entry, I am a gentleman through and through, and the entire time I was just wishing that I could get to know her beautiful...personality) exchanged, looks of shared amazement and "did you see THAT???" from teenagers to grandfathers alike...and for a beautiful moment, we were not gringos and ecuadorian citizens....but all together men...glorying in God´s creation...

Haha, I can only picture Mom squirming while reading this...thinking of the many relatives that may also be following this event and judging her parental skills...(of course if you´ve met my father you´ll realize that in terms of instilling any sense of propriety and/or appropriate humor my mother has been up against some serious odds...) So for her sake I´ll point out that clearly I am not a chauvanistic pig who is solely focused on the physical aspects of women...if I were I would never have noticed the reactions from the rest of the crowd... But mom, even YOU would have stared had you been there with us...that I promise.

So back to decent conversation...

We headed to the iguana park, where the reptiles had all climbed their trees to begin sleeping, and then we headed off to Las Peñas, a historic neighborhood where all the houses were painted with pretty pastel colors (see, more evidence against the bryce-is-a-pig argument...I appreciate art). At the top of a 500 step climb (each step was numbered), there was a tower from which you could see the whole city and the river, as well as the lights from the cities across the river. The view was absolutley amazing, and we stayed up there for at least 20 minutes, enjoying the strong breeze and soaking in the fact that we were experiencing something we´d remember for the rest of our lives. We finished the night by eating dinner at one of the local restaurants, and heading to a bar that had live traditional music. There we saw a 60 year old man sweettalk what had to be a prostitute, I enjoyed a short conversation with Morgan who called me from back home (it´s amazing how much my value of phone calls from back home has increased), and Dan attempted to prove his masculinity by ordering a pisco sour, only to be brought what looked like a mint smoothie...

The next morning was relatively uneventful, we ate breakfast, saw the iguana park again (because lets face it, it´s a park full of IGUANAS), went through another not touristy marketplace, and caught the minivan home. All in all, a great trip, good people, good experiences, and shared masculinity with a great view....JOKE

And before I forget, since I haven´t talked to you, Congrats to Hieu on getting into so many med schools, Ash I hope your interview went well, Joe and David I´m sorry about the Sox, Drew...screw you, you´re not reading this..., and Krissy i´m completely jealous that you were in Salamanca this past weekend...

And as a combined note-to-self and preview for the next entry, be prepared to read about: my students, my host sisters, my host sister´s birthday party, my host sister´s field trip, the new addition to our family here, and.......buzz lightyear