Random Thoughts and Guayaquilino Observations.

Whenever I start a blog entry, I think about all the things I want to say and then proceed to forget most of them as I go off on one tangent or another.  You might think that if I've forgotten it, it just wasn't worth adding in, but for some items, I just can't agree.  For instance:  American Airlines likes playing muzak as you taxi on and off the runway.  More to the point, they played an instrumental version of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines".  Try and imagine a piano in place of T.I. and Pharrell and the "You want to hug me, what rhymes with hug me?" line replaced with violins...utterly ridiculous. 

We've also discovered that Guayaquilanos (I can't settle on a proper name, so I'll probably try several variations) are family oriented, tend to wander down streets as one wide group (not clusters, but like the money shot in the movie "A Chorus Line").  They love fast food: empanadas, KFC, and almost anything grab and go.  There seems to be very little fine dining (at least where we're staying), not that there isn't good food, because there is.  Almost every soup we've had in Ecuador has been over the top delicious.  We've figured out that half the problem is that Guayaquil is HUGE.  There isn't a lot of high rises, so most of the 2.4 million people live over an endlessly sprawling man made jungle.  You can ride in a cab for 20 minutes and just get yourself to another part of the city. (Assuming traffic is good.)  We're planning a field trip tomorrow to find a new culinary landscape.

They also love their football (European, not American).  When Ecuador won a game over Uruguay, this is what ensued (the noise was ear shattering):

I hope you can hear the sound!

The restaurants that are here also have a very...interesting...taste in music.  If you like muzak U2, mixed with ABBA, throw a couple of random 80's hits, by their original artists and you have restaurant music.  Quite fascinating.  Apparently, signaling when you're driving is completely optional and turning from the outside lane into the near lane is also perfectly okay.  It's not unusual to have 10 people in one cab...a car, not a minivan.  This means that seat belts are also just a suggestion.  All this being said, we've yet to see a bloody smash ups or left over police tape from some grisly pedestrian accident.  I think this calls for more photos...nothing icky:

 

Midway up over 400 stairs...in 32 degree weather

First course of our $2.50 lunch

New condo going up on the river front

The Barrio of Santa Ana

There are a lot of messy, noisy places here in Guayaquil, but, as you can see, there are also some really pretty places with lots of interesting crooks and crannies.  We're quite ready to move on to Cuenca, but we have a few more days to kill here.  (Did I mention that it took us 3 full days to find a tourism office, but they didn't even have maps of the city.)  They don't really do tourism here yet, but we did see one of those "ride on top" hop on/off tour buses, very strangely after dark.  Not sure what that was about and it will likely remain a mystery.  Until next time!