A Day At The Football
One of my aims for South America was to try and see a game of football in every country; yesterday saw the first instalment in my footballing odyssey.

With new football mates, Nick (Spurs fan, we didn’t mention Chimbonda), James (Liverpool fan), Brian the Aussie who was a self professed football virgin and Melissa from the Sates who loved the game, in tow we piled into the bus for the Estadio Olympico to see Nacional of Quito (AntonioValencia’s team) take on bottom of the league Aucas.

$10 bought me a terrace seat and a good few bottles of beer and we sat back to enjoy the game. To be fair the standard of football was pretty poor, about conference level, but the atmosphere, even in a small crowd of a few thousand was cracking.

The fact that the score was 2 each is probably incidental as pretty early on the clouds opened and we were surrounded by a torment of Ecuadorian rain, nothing in England comes close. A quick exit to the under stand area followed although we still got soaked through.

Half time beers later and the rain had slowed a bit so we ventured back out and made our way to las Ultras area of the terracing. After a few mentions of AntonioValenica, a firm friendship (in footballing terms) had been struck up and the Ultras were soon passing round the local firewater.
The game petered out and we left wet but happy back to the hostel, the rest of the day spent drying out and playing cards, oh and going to the Casino and winning the huge sum of $3 on Black Jack.