The Road to Work

Just sharing some snaps of the steep road through Guapulo which I take to work everyday. I need to take a video as the drive is quite maddening. It's beautiful and charming. That's my car! (I wish)

The Good Life in Guayaquil

Weekend highlights included:

- My first observation of Polo. It's quite an expensive sport. Apparently you need to own at least 6 horses to play. A gentleman than I met owned 14 horses!!

- The best steak ever.  The stable master cooked-up an Argentinean BBQ using different cuts of the cow. Each one clearly tasted different. Honestly, it was the best most succulent meat!

- The nightlife in Samborondon! Stylish, sexy, exclusive clientele with Latin house music. I finally got my fix! Bought a bottle of Bacardi for the table and am still a bit hung over a few days later.

Quick thanks to Oscar and his crew for taking me out!!

First trip to Guayaquil

I just returned from my business & pleasure trip to Guayaquil, 35 minutes by flight on TAME the local carrier . This the largest city in Ecuador with almost 2 million inhabitants. It's situated along the Guayas river and a few hours drive from beautiful beaches where I will be headed to in a few weeks.

I was greeted at the airport by our sales staff which took me on a field visit to the wide range of retailers. For the first time in my professional life, we were escorted by an armed bodyguard who followed us around the city on motor-bike and discreetly "watched our backs" as we walked the streets.

Most of the mom and pop stores were completely gated by bars preventing customers from entering the stores. Instead customers peer through the bars at the inventory and ask for what they want. (see photo)

The weather was scorching hot, 30 degrees; cloudless. The street vendors were bust selling 10 cent cups of coca-cola out of 2 liter pet-bottles.

 

Honestly, the scenic views were no where as gorgeous as Quito, but apparently it has been renovated up quite a bit. The Malecon boardwalk was quite nice with views of the river and cafes. Other than that, there were some nice colonial buildings and parks with iguanas. I going to get 2 baby iguanas as pets and will pick them up on my next visit.  I took the double decker city tour but fell asleep. But that was because of the hang-over!

I  snapped a shot of the door banning firearms in the mall. It's quite common to see such signs!

Japanese Restaurant

I figured that Japanese food, some Miso-soup especially, would work better against my food poisoning than the prescriptions. So I ventured to my fist Japanese restaurant at the Swissotel. Though the sashimi was tempting I knew that would be irresponsible to my stomach. So I indulged in an Unagi-don. It was delicious!! Next time will smuggle in some Japanese food. All I brought was Vegemite and that aint Japanese!

1st Food Poisoning

I ended up spending most of the weekend fighting off the most painful Food Poisoning ever. I can't pin-point what it was that I ate or drank but it hit me hard. As always, I see everything in a positive light. I got to see what an emergency room in an Ecuadorian hospital was like. Honestly, it was not so bad, and the doctor spoke english. He looked a bit spooky with a plastic cast over his nose. Apparently he just got a nose-job. Plastic surgery is popular among men too! Sorry, I couldn't snap his photo but I asked for a pic of myself to share with you.

I title this 1st Food Poisoning, as I assume that this will happen again!!

Safety in Quito

I have not collected all the facts yet. But apparently, one of the bar owners of a local place in la Mariscal (Nightlife area) was shot and killed today. I met him last Saturday. There were flowers outside the bar tonight. God Bless. I apologize if I don't have the facts right but I am quite sure that this is a fact. It's hard to believe that we just met and something so horrible could happen. I feel for all his buddies as he had a tight crowd.

2010 World Cup

Football Fever, Viva Ecuador!! My first Sunday in Ecuador, I ended up at a football match on the front row with people that I met the night before!! Believe it or not, my cell phone is already filling up with phone numbers! Ecuador beat Chile (sorry Ken Takahashi) 1 nil in a World Cup Qualifier. We sang and danced and I represented Miyakojima, Okinawa diving / football team in the Ecuadorian yellow color. 

By the way, that's me with the Beer Lady. We had lot's of beer as you can see and smuggled in Rum! What a blast!

The Old Town Square

Everything is exotic to the eye. A folkloric afternoon dance in the Old Town Quito square. Can't believe that I am living here!

Scenes from Ecuador on my first weekend

The pictures above are from scenes taken during a journey from Quito to Otavalo. They are not representative of Quito per se, but at least you will see how exotic this place is. 

In the small town of Calderon, I saw business men travelling in the back of pick up trucks as a means of transportation. 

The Otavalo market and Andean Indian women and an old lady in their daily life.

Beautiful mountain peaks, llamas and lakes.

The Pan-American highway rolls up and down constantly past volcanoes everywhere.

Ecuadorian Food (including the Guinea Pig)

The food in Ecuador is delicious and sometimes quite exotic. Think bananas, corn, corn, potatoes, bananas, rice....But coupled with fantastic seafoods, meats and spices, it can be quite tantalizing. 

The ceviche is awesome, made with orange-juice, lime, oil, seaf00d, coriander and other spices. Hot seafood soups were also great.

Today, I challenged myself to deep fried Guinea Pig (モルモット）. It was sliced down the middle, and served whole with the back facing up. The skin was crispy, with a sliver of fatty, oily meat. I ate it all, but I think there is a reason why this is only served in the Andean regions of Ecuador, Columbia, Peru, Bolivia. I washed it down with a large bottle of Pilsner, the local brew.

Today, I will play it safe and venture to the one and only Vietnamese restaurant in Quito!

Oswaldo Guayasamin

We ventured on to the Guayasamin Foundation museum. He is the most famous artist in Ecuador. His paintings captured a lot of emotion; pain and love. Like Picasso, he became rich while he was still alive. The museum sells signed lithographs which may be worth a lot at some point. I will definitely purchase some as a gift to self upon graduation from Ecuador ;)

Note the painting of Pinochet. He sarcastically inscribed Pino-shit on the painting!

Road Trip Accident

On the way to Otavalo, Indian Markets, we had to make a sudden stop. Sirens wailed with Police, Ambulances and Bomberos (Firemen) zooming by minutes later. With traffic at a halt we walked 100 meters up ahead to see a major accident. A truck full of logs lost control and went over the cliff! The logs smashed into the car behind it, crushing the car. I don't think the truck driver could have survived the fall over the cliff into the canyons! 

Note to self: Don't drive close behind a truck with a heavy load!

TeleferiQo 4000 meters

On Thursday night, I was fortunate enough to meet up with some cool people living in Quito (thanks Kana). The morning after, I woke up to a great Cuba Libre hang-over and met up with Carmen Rosa from my company who took me out in Quito for the day. We started the day by taking the Gondola up to 4000 meters (higher than Mount Fuji)! Certainly, the air was thin up there and one of the local girls got altitude sickness so we headed down. My objective is to climb beyond 5000 meters while I am here.