Feb 7th 2009 - Exploring the city

Continuing with the phased approach to Ecuadorian life, I watched Man City vs Middlesborough and dressed up as the typical English tourist (shorts, shirt and hat charging around the place like he knows what he is doing when really he knows nothing) for our walk around the city, which took in parks, churches, the presidential palace and a great many little streets (some of which had kids playing with whatever they could find).

In our downtime back at the hostel I realised why I would still watch English football while out here. Pompey vs Liverpool. Torres scores. English commentary = boring. Ecuadorian commentary = sing the ABBA song ‘Fernando’. Love it.

The group were bonding better now and our Salsa lessons certainly helped there. I was awful but the lesson was immense – just so much fun! I found trying to remember the steps and movements difficult but assumed I would get better with practice…I may have been wrong!

Afterwards we went for a little drink and were accosted by a transvestite who looked suspiciously like Diego Maradona. He was out of work at the time (Maradona that is) so it may well have been him. We went to a lush Mongolian restaurant for dinner before some of the Danes, Hilde and I went to Finn McCools (one of the greatest names for an Irish bar I have known) for some pool, darts and table football.