"stomach full, heart happy"

So the two main observations so far. Guayas (the name given to the residents of Guayaquil) drive without fear and like crazy people. Seriously you think London traffic is bad just wait till you get to Ecuador. The road is 5 lanes wide with no markings and people speed in and out of turnings and between invisible lanes without indicating anything. Apparantly Ecudorians are telepathic. People sitting in the back of open trucks while pedestrians chance running in front of the unstobble stampede of traffic. Freakin terrifying. Oh and the buses are bad of I dont know what and don{t stop to let you on or off. You gotta have swift reflexes or kiss the tarmac.

Secondly the Ecuadorians love their food, and if its made of plantain and fried all the better. And the nomz is so cheap. For  3 Dollars (cant find  all punctuation or dollar signs on this darned keyboard!) you can get a 2 course big meal with a drink and have change left over for some delicious street food.

Street food is amazing; humitas, empanads (con cueso y con carne), alfehores, tortilla de cueso, tacos (mexican food served by chileans in an ecuadorian city, interesting !) . Humitas are made from pulped sweetcorn and something else which i forget(!), stuffed with cheese and baked inside the leaves of the sweetcorn. Yum. And empanadas are like latin american cornish pasties only way better. 

They have juices made from every fruit every. So far for breakfast each day weve tried smoothies with custard apple, mixed berries and mango. Fit. Feel like I may over exceed the weight limit for the return flight  ;P

We saw the decorated horses on Thurs. They were their to celebrate the city{s foundation. We walked along the Rio Guayas, along the malecon with gabbling school children bustling past, and accompanied by Karin, Fernando, and Erica , Karin{s daughter. 

Guayaquil is a massive city. You just can{t get a feel of it. Its the definition of sprawling. Its too grey and hectic for my liking. Plus everyone has done amazing jobs at telling Anisha and I how dangerous Guayquil is and how we shouldnt go out along or at night. Fun.

On Friday Karin did take us to visit a local school on top of the hill in Guayquil. It was in the dodgey end of town, with breeze block houses perched precariously on the hillside, painted in faded colours of glory. It was quite surreal actual visiting. We were driven there by Karin{s driver in her massive chevrolet type 4x4. I didn{t want to be a tourist just snapping pics of other peoples poverty but our entrance didn{t help that. 

When inside the school however it highlighted, as Karin said, that happiness doesn{t come from money. These kids were some of the happiest and most outgoing children Ive ever seen. They were so confident and proud and immediately were intrigued to see us. When we left they said thank you and goodbye and English. They were so proud of themselves. It was so beautiful to see.

I{m running out of time in the internet cafe and Im concious that Doris other son, Sebastiean, his computer has   died and his 8 yr old self is being very patient with us. 

After the school we went to see lots of nature! We saw gigantic tortoises attempting to have sex, and iguanas perched in the trees like pigeons. We then went to the Park Historico de Guayaquil and walked around the recreated ecaudorian rainforest and saw crabs scuttling out of mangrove tree ridden mud, and parrots and monkeys and eagles!

We managed to catch a practice performance for the weekend of a step back in time type thing they had of an old Ecuadorian manor house with music . The song was called advocate or soemthing like that, basically advocado. It was a love song and the advocado name had tenuous links, dont think it was because the dude had untoward feelings for advocados.

okay that{s enough for then. i want to write more about the family and how awesome and amazing they are but the minutes are ticking down.

much love

xxxx