Greetings all! It's late tonight as I post this and the kids are tired so it's just going to be me. We'll have to catch up tomorrow with the pictures from today and there were...oh at least 500 of them!
So if you all remember this trip is being made possible by the head coach of my master's swim team in Davis. Rick, our coach, has organized everything to every last detail. We have several Ecuadorians that are "hanging" out with us 24/7 which is awesome. One in particular, Roberta, is seriously superwoman! She does it all...including yelling at vendors who try to charge us too much.
The day started for me at least by saying goodbye to Chris as he went out for a run. I woke up and decided to go to the local Panaderia for breakfast and thought I'd bring some back for everyone. The kids were happy to stay here and sleep in. So I set off and found several of my teammates doing the same thing. It's nice to have a different breakfast for once. At the hotel breakfast is included...did I mention the tiny hot dogs they serve every morning?! I ordered several bakery items to take back to the hotel, some sweet and some savory. They were a hit and I was so proud of myself for ordering in Spanish. My Spanish is muy mal!
The team had a practice this am so I set off with them. Rick has been nice enough to let Hannah work out with the team too - of course she's in lane 2 of 8 so I don't see her once we get into the pool - so she came with us.
I love the pool. It's fast, deep and the water is the perfect temperature, nice and cool. I have to get used to my times being different from yards to meters, it does throw me a bit. One thing I notice when I'm swimming is each time I take a breath I notice a different smell. It's diesel, no, it's fried empanadas, no, it's cumin, no it's slightly sour. Yep, lots of smells each time I take a breath - a reminder that I'm very far away and in a South American city. Tomorrow is our meet against several Ecuadorian teams, I have no idea how many people will be there just know that a bus picks us up at 7:30 and we have a party later!
After we swam we went to an awesome fruit stand where we got huge cups of fruit, I mean 160z cup size jammed with papaya, melons, pineapple, grapes, bananas for oh .60cents. It was so good and refreshing. They also had empanadas, the biggest ones I've seen so far stuffed with cheese or meat. I sampled a bite from Chris, Hannah and Hailey's, yum!
We went back to our hotel and got ready for our day on foot in the city. We walked the entire Malecon 2000 ( the new boardwalk) in search of the artists market place. We found one area at the south end but I really wanted to head to the north end to the hillside of Santa Ana to see the oldest part of Guayaquil. It was so beautiful - 440 steps to the top of the hill and an additional climb up to the top of a lighthouse for an awesome 360 degree view of the city. The houses were so colorful, green, blue, yellow all close together and packed in tightly. Every several houses were restaurants or bars or little stores where you could purchase ice cream or sodas. I've never seen anything like it really. We had a great time on the way down as we took a side route that led us to a playground built into the side of the hill full of children playing futbol and on the park play structures. We sat with these children and spoke in broken Spanish for a bit...they were adorable and loved having us take their pictures. Did I mention that there are security guards everywhere, with guns? Yep all over, guess that's good as it keeps the rif raf away!
We had a loooonnnggg day walking - ended up eating dinner in the outskirts of town in a more upscale area called Urdesa. The restaurant we ate at was recommended by one of our Ecuadorian guardians and the food was great. We got back to the hotel late, I think it's 10:30pm right now and I need to get to sleep. We'll write more tomorrow after the swim meet and party!
Adios - Lisa
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