Fireworks Madness, A Bus With A Smoke Machine & An Animal Massacre - It Can Only Be Quito!!!

The Team

Between Quilotoa and my next trip out of the city - I actually spent a fair amount of time in Quito..........doing very Quito things. I amassed an amazing group of friends during this time. Sometimes with volunteers at the Secret Garden - who I usually make my buddies, it comes a bit in waves. You will often get a great group who stay for a while and then they all tend to leave at the same time and you have to start all over again. I have my even longer term friends who are not volunteers which is amazing too - but mostly my time is spent hanging out amongst the Secret Garden chaos that quickly develops.

During this period of time, Ella and Nina, two young English ladies had come over to work as volunteers and in the end, stayed for almost three months. Joining them was an amazing Australian couple, Dom and Georgie as well as another Dom from England, Elena (my work compañera) and some other guys who stayed for a long period of time just for the sake of the others. Together our group had some brilliant times and did some bizarre yet always fun activities.

One of my other good friends, Jens - likes to play a joke or two and his ability to keep a straight face during the whole procedure only adds to its realism. So when he told us that there was a water museum in Quito and that it contained bottles of some of the oldest water in the world - half the hostel believed him. Of course this is not true and I quickly realised this, yet we would continue to convice the newbies to Quito that they had to check it out for its sheer historical value. Later Jens had to move to the Jungle for his work, where his girlfriend from Germany (Marie) had come over to join him. The next time I left the city, it would be to join up with the two of them.

However, there is actually a water museum in Quito (despite not containg old water) and so, bored one Saturday - Ella and I had to check it out, if nothing else - for pure comedy value. Its an odd place, describing about water in this area - the river systems, irrigation etc, etc. It also has a bubble room where you can make bubbles about the size of your head. We laughed most of the way around the museum despite its interesting exhibits.

Within the months that passed, the group often headed out on the town for a bit of partying. This included a trip to the Guapulo street festival, which mainly involved drinking traditional Ecuadorian alcohol called canelazo and watching fireworks fly passed your head as they are not aimed up to the sky but instead into the crowd. It was most odd.

On one weekend, there was a three day bull-fighting event taking place. On my very road in which I live, is actually a bull-fighting stadium. Its meant to be one of the oldest in the country and in my 9 months here, I had never actually been inside. A bunch of us went as the event was free on the first two nights. The last time I went to a bull fight it was a kids show and no bulls were harmed. This however, was a whole different affair. As one bull was brought on after another, each matador would tease the animal before staking it in the back, through the heart, where it would stumble for a few seconds before collapsing to the floor. If the matador was poor the animal would suffer terribly. The whole ordeal was pretty hard to watch and I along with many friends only stayed for 25 minutes before walking out in horror. We later got talking to the guy who arranged the event and he explained the full rules of it and how it was part of tradition in the country. Some rules to know about:

1. If the bull runs straight under the cloth and does not turn away at the end, they are considered a perfect bull and it is not allowed to be killed - it gets sent back to the field to eat grass for the rest of its life. This happened only once during the event.

2. When the sound horns, the matador has three minutes to kill the bull. The horn sounds on two minutes and finally on one. If the matador does not kill the bull in three minutes they will never be a matador again.

3. When the matador is poor and the bull is suffering the crowd will boo and show their disapproval - apparently the audience does not like witnessing animal suffering as much as anyone else. If the bull is killed correctly the animal supposedly does not feel pain.

Despite this I dont personally feel that killing a bull for sport is particularly enjoyable and so when we saw a huge anti-bullfight street protest the following day from our terrace (which ended up getting quite violent) and resulted in the following two nights being cancelled - many of us were quite happy about it!!! It is part of the tradition here so I am not going to judge, but it also appears that new generations of Ecuadorians are also against the whole activity.

A far more enjoyable sport in my opinion is football. Its huge here and naturally I am a major fan. My team in Ecador is La Liga, although I had not been to a match for a while. Then a game came up which I just had to go to. In South America there are two main competitions, like that of the Champions League and the Europa Cup in Europe. Last season La Liga won the Champions league version and some Argentinian team (who Veron now plays for) one the other major trophy. As the new season starts they have a two legged game between the two teams - like a cup winners cup. Myself and about 9 others decided we had to see the home tie.

After some chaos getting in (many angry fans due to police incompetence and a few arrests) we finally entered. The stadium was packed and the noise was immense. There were a few thousand Argentinians around adding to that. The fireworks that were let off in the stadium was extraordinary. I have never seen anything quite like it at a football game. By the end you couldnt see the pitch for the amount of smoke which filled the air. The game was thus postponed for 15 minutes. Eventually we got under way, winning the game 2-1. A few weeks later, we ended up drawing 0-0 in Argentina and ultimatley becoming the best team around.

As work continued to plod along, the other most notable activity of fun during this time, was a party that we had been invited to. It was on a Chiva Bus, a tradition in many parts of South America. I had been on one, last December, when I first arrived and so was very happy to get a second opportunity. A birthday girl from America had hired out this open bus, which also has disco lights, a DJ, a smoke machine and canelazo alcohol for the entire time your on it. It drives around the city for two hours during which time you dance, drink and wave to people in the street. Everyone also gets given a whistle for maximum noise pollution. It also makes one stop in the historic old town of Quito for birthday photos, before continuing around the city. The trick is to manage to stay standing on a moving bus while drinking and dancing at the same time. By the end no-one really remembers anything of whether standing was an issue or not so it doesnt really matter. It then drops the group off (which can be up to 45 people - we were about 30) in the party area of the Mariscal for more clubbing mayhem. There were only 5 or 6 people that I actually knew but we all had such an amazing time. It was at that moment, with my birthday only a month away, that a Chiva Bus with all my friends on it would have to be done. Three days later it was booked.

Before this birthday to remember (or not), I had to make a trip out to see Jens and Marie in the Jungle. So one weekend, I dragged Ella, Nina and Elena out with me, for my second trip - to Tena........................