I did not, in fact, see Reik in concert...

But I was right next to the tent where they were going to play a few hours later!

But before we get to that...hello to any of the extended Dunn clan who may be reading this after Mom spread the word at Quinn´s wedding! And congratulations to the bride and groom, best wishes from Ecuador!

I have now successfully completed over a week of teaching English at the University of Machala, and no one has said I can´t come back, so clearly I´m fooling someone into thinking I know what I´m doing. Actually, classes have gone pretty well, and apart from one half of my conversation class I like the majority of my students...and some of them even laugh at my jokes!

The first week was only a four day week, because October 9th is the anniversary of Guayaquil´s declaring its independence from Spain, which thereby started the war for Independence. And, in amazingly Ecuadorian fashion, and even though the 9th was a Thursday, the government switched the holiday this year to Friday, so everyone could get a three day weekend. I love this country.

The original plan was to go up to Guayaquil with my host sister Arlene and Katherine, and then go up to Salinas on Saturday. However, what I´ve learned so far in this country that plans are only reliable 10 minutes before they are supposed to take place. The day before we were scheduled to leave, Arlene told me that she would not be able to go. However, since Katherine is a trooper, we decided that we would only slightly modify our plans, and go to Guayaquil for two days, which was probably a better idea anyways. And, since we laugh in the face of danger and are not scarred by the bus incident whatsoever...we took a private minivan. This mode of transportation is what we will be taking from now on...because I am able to put my iPod (I bought a new one, don´t ever buy electronics if you´re in Ecuador...it´s one hell of a hassle) in my ears and fall asleep without fear of street vendors trying to sell me tantalizing street meat in my sleep or worse...

We reached Guayaquil and, with a little help from our guidebook, we found a decent hostel not too far from the downtown area. Decent meaning no fear of theft...the mattress was like sleeping on a slab of rock. At each hostel that we checked out it took a little explaining that we didn´t actually want a matrimonial room, but that we were two single gringos who wanted separate beds. As you all know, I am a gentleman who has the utmost respect for women and their personal space, and I made sure to get us a room where Katherine could feel comfortable and safe. (By the way Mr. and Mrs. Hamby, Katherine told me that you might be reading this blog every once in a while, nice to meet you and I hope that reading this blog won´t cause you as much terror as Jon´s might have...)

We then met up with Craig in El Parque Centenario, where he had just had a conversation with a man who told him very openly after introducing himself that he came to the park in order to search for men to have sex with...Craig said he also used hand motions or gestures...I´m not really sure. (I believe Craig politely declined...) Craig was my housemate in Quito and one of the volunteers stationed in Guayaquil; he also happens to be one of the people I get along with the best here. We would later be joined on Saturday by Melea and Dan from Guaranda, with whom I also get along really well (no hanging prepositions...look who´s learning their own language...) so needless to say, along with Katherine, this was a very good group.

Katherine, Craig, and I started our tour of Guayaquil with the Malecon, one of the things that the city is most known for. I say our tour because Craig had not yet been to the majority of the places we visited, his experience was mainly around his area of Guaya, which was far from the touristy section that we were exploring. The Malecon is basically a long boardwalk right on the edge of the river, and it´s pretty amazing. Beautiful arquitecture, playground equipment, a section of painters and artists doing their work right on the water, and hundreds of people strolling from one end to the other. We then went to the Simon Bolivar park. There is a statue and/or park dedicated to Simon Bolivar in every city in Ecuador, due to his leadership during the independence movements of half of the South American countries. What made this park unique was the presence of hundreds of iguanas within the park´s fences. Apparently when they were expanding the city, there were so many iguanas in this one area that the city developers decided to leave it as a park and build out from there. Having never seen an iguana in the wild before (although I guess you can´t really consider the downtown of Guayaquil "the wild") it was quite the sight. And these Iguanas were basically tame, you were able to touch them, they ran from grassy section to grassy section, and basically were unphased by the masses of people taking pictures and poking them.

After walking around other areas of the city, we decided to go see the fair in Duran, a city 15 minutes away. I have never been to a county fair before, but Katherine said they´re all pretty much the same...what this one lacked was animals and rides, but it did have booths, shows, liters of beer for a dollar and fifty cents (haHA suckers still paying 9 bucks for a bottle at sports games back home), a soccer juggling performance that was pretty impressive, and a concert featuring old men dancing to reggaeton which was equally impressive if not moreso. However, the concert tickets for Reik were 40 dollars a pop, and since I´m a volunteer, I couldn´t justify paying that much money...plus the other two didn´t really want to go as much as I did. So instead we went back to Guaya and had a couple drinks at a great bar on the Malecon, again, right on the river, which was a beautiful view. Then Katherine and I said goodbye to Craig and went back to our room and watched Bad Boys 2 in Spanish until we fell asleep.

This is one long entry...and I´m tired....I´ll finish day 2 later....