One of my favorite people, Kristen, just moved to Quito to serve her 3rd year in the city and I am missing her like crazy. Last Friday (day before the big Ecuador vs. Uraguay game) she called me standing outside of the soccer stadium with an extra ticket to the game trying to persuade me to make a impulsive trip to Quito.
A combination of having a disappointing work day, missing the compamy of a good friend and wanting to sport my Ecuadorian pride with other screaming Ecuadorian fans, convinced me to just that. I jumped on a night bus that same day with a few other Manabi queridos. We arrived in Quito a 4 a.m. after getting very little sleep on the bus and got a couple of hours of shut-eye at Kristen´s place before heading to the stadium at 10 a.m. (for a 5:00 o´clock game!!) Ecuador has come serious fans here, and we wanted to make sure after we had traveled all night long to get to the game, that we were going to get good seats. :)
A combination of having a disappointing work day, missing the compamy of a good friend and wanting to sport my Ecuadorian pride with other screaming Ecuadorian fans, convinced me to just that. I jumped on a night bus that same day with a few other Manabi queridos. We arrived in Quito a 4 a.m. after getting very little sleep on the bus and got a couple of hours of shut-eye at Kristen´s place before heading to the stadium at 10 a.m. (for a 5:00 o´clock game!!) Ecuador has come serious fans here, and we wanted to make sure after we had traveled all night long to get to the game, that we were going to get good seats. :)
We got our Ecua gear on the streets lining the stadium where there are hoards of vendors waiting to sell you any type of Ecuador sports gear you could ever imagine and waiting to paint your face YELLOW, BLUE and RED!
Getting to the stadium 7 hours before a game starts, is definitely a new record for me. The time, however, went by fast as we made friends with people in our stands and learned new cheers (and swear words :/) to yell when the game started. 
Que viva la gente de Manabi!!!
Hiding from the sun
The entire stadium PURO AMARILLO!¨Vamos, Ecuatorianos, esta tarde, tenemos que ganar!!¨
A giant oversized Ecuadorian flag kept getting passed over our section and the fans would go nuts cheering and hollering as the flag swayed over everyone´s heads.
Everything started looking a little yellow by the middle of the game......Jenn, Kristen and me under the flag
So, end result.....Ecuador lost, and is out of the World Cup :( but it was still an incredible time to be in the stadium with so many excited and die-hard fans.We didn´t let the loss get us down though, we ended the night by going out dancing and crashing at Kristen´s place early the next morning, only to get on another night bus that day to head back to my site. It was a whirlwind of a trip but I am so glad Kristen convinced me to go!
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