[The events in this entry take place on December 3, 2008]

“VIVA QUITO!”

“VIVAAAA”

Except that isn’t what it sounds like the throng of bullfighting fanatics are filling the stadium with the forced retort.  The muffled collection of drunken screamers in unison manage a sound that generally sounds more like:

“REEBAAHHHHF”

It does to my ears, at least.  The woman behind me insists it’s “VIVA!” though, and there are no rules or methods to the madness of the cries — just a profound love for the city exacerbated by mass quantities of alcohol.  At random, someone in the stadium howls out an impassioned “Viva Quito,” the emphasis falling on any one of the four syllables depending on the crier.  Sometimes he sounds enthralled, while others sound almost pained, but always the caller sounds male and profoundly intoxicated.  There may be minutes between each instance of this call-and-response game, or there may be mere seconds.  This town’s got quite the love affair with itself.

1.1 million people might sound like a lot, but compared to Bogota’s 11 million just to the north, or Sao Paolo’s 17 million, Ecuador’s capital and second biggest city is positively tiny.  Whether innately proud of its diminutive size or suffering from insecurity due to population envy, the city still manages to to take a “July 4″-like holiday and celebrate it about ten times as strongly as we tend to.  How are the holidays different, you ask?

• 

  The chiba. These trucks with bands on top (that continue to play even in the rain) fill the streets during Fiesta de Quito

  Police generally turn a blind eye to urinating in the streets.  Actually, no.  This is no different from any other day in Quito.

• It’s a celebration not of independence (Ecuador has its own national holiday for that.  Apparently Quito’s not as into it).  Rather, it’s celebrating the foundation of the city itself, back around 1532 or so.
• Fireworks are lit continuously all day, as well as all night.  None of the gringos understand this, as fireworks aren’t terribly visible by day.  This does not stop them from being fired off around the clock to rousing cheers, without much real increase in frequency after sundown.
• People smiling in the streets don’t immediately drop their smiles upon accidentally making eye contact with a gringo.
• Miss Quito is elected, based entirely on “public service and dancing abilities.”  (”looks don’t matter at all, then? ” I ask.  “Um.  Maybe a little…” I’m told)
• At least four separate parades take place based on region of town.
• All the major annual Quito competitions that don’t involve soccer (bike races, marathons, auto races, card games and others) take place this week.
• And finally, the primary reason the holiday is ten times as large as the US Independence Day is due to the fact that it goes on for ten consecutive days, culminating in an all-night party on the tenth night that rocks the entire city.

Fiesta or Feria de Quito happens to coincide with Schedler’s visit down here, and in addition to the increase in overall drunken revelry throughout town, the holiday is also complemented by the Superbowl of bullfighting spectacles.  While the estadio de matadors presents bullfights year round, the ten days of Quito’s Foundation are marked by ten days of the greatest bullfighters [Note: So we're told, anyway.  Short of any bullfighter getting severely gored and trampled in front of a live crowd, I would have no way of knowing good technique from bad] in the world.  Any given weekend at the stadium might include marginally talented fighters from across Ecuador, or maybe some neighboring countries; this week, we’re entertained by matadors from Spain, Portugal, France and throughout Latin America.

Tickets are $35 a person — big money down here, despite being one of the cheapest of the ten days of carnage.  Whether that lessened price has something to do with the quality of fighters or quality of the bulls is beyond my grasp.  Still, every one of the six rounds (broken in half by a 30 minute intermission) begins with an enormous placard walked around the arena listing off the matador‘s name and country as well as the farm this toro came from.  Three fighters would get two bulls each today, with the top billing going to a Spaniard named El Juli.

Schedler’s marginally interested in the spectacle, as he’s out for the kinds of experiences you can’t really get in the States.  Still, the idea of watching a bovine slowly get slaughtered before a throng of madly cheering Ecuadorians doesn’t seem to fill him with burning curiosity.  In its own undeniable ways, it’s every bit as gory and inhumane as I’d been told, but I’m here for the great and terrible that the world has to offer, and depending on whom you talk to, this makes either list.

The stadium’s smaller by far than local football (soccer) fields, and round rather than ovular.  A round wall encircles the entire block, however, leaving a large grassy halo of grounds within the official stadium for vendors, VIP tents and massive stages with scantily clad men and women thrusting rhythmically to salsa beats as a means of promoting (in at least two cases that I saw) cell phone carriers and pharmaceuticals.  Food ranges from expansive, thirty dollar platters of fine breads, meats and cheeses to two dollar sandwiches and empanadas.

Drink-wise, — and there are many drinks being consumed here — the best deal, and one of the most popular, involves an entire bottle of surprisingly drinkable red wine served with a thick, sealable plastic cup/straw combination, large enough to house the entire contents of bottle, which the saleswoman gladly decants for us.  All this for eight dollars.

The stands inside are rings formed by cool, concrete steps, with little space between one person’s foot and another one’s rear.  It’s not the most comfortable setting for three hours of sitting, but it could easily be worse; every other day massive torrents of rain poured from the sky from noon to three (the daily hours of the bullfights).  Today, though, we’re bothered by less than a few minutes of misty, refreshing drizzle.

Noon arrives and the doormen go into lock-down mode; no moving about is tolerated while the bull’s in action.  The fight information fully disseminated to the feisty crowd, and a score of “VIVA QUITOOOO”s answered, the black, gladiator-style door swings open violently as hundreds of pounds of midnight-black sinewy muscle erupts forth, slowing to a confused trot nearabout the center of the ring before stopping completely, unsue of what to do next.

“VIVA QUITO.”  “VIVAAAA!!!”

Four men with, vividly ostentatious pink and yellow capes venture out from the four corners of the ring.  Besides the bull gate, there are two other entryways into the ring, each with a stone wall blocking the door allowing for safe escape should the bull prove particularly tenacious in its strong hatred of pink.  Bulls would slam headfirst like fleshy battering rams, unfazed, into these walls several times over the course of the day.

“Why are they using pink capes?  I thought it was supposed to be red…”

Schedler shrugs.  Why would he know?

In turn, the four contort their bodies sideways to present as little as possible to their charging attacker, simultaneously creating as much of a pink target as their capes allow.  Generally, bulls charge through, receiving a quick swat on the ass with the small stick the matador carries, and immediately stop, momentarily confused, before being taunted once again.  Sometimes, however, the bull jolts around in a sweeping 180 and maintains its heated advance through a series of volleys.  Still other times, an errant horn catches the cape, leaving the matador completely defenseless, and running.  It is during these times that the alternates run forward, as does Ecuador’s equivalent of the rodeo clown, which immediately captures the full brunt of the bull’s rage and attention.

Because everyone hates clowns.  Even bulls.

But the pinkcapes are just a distraction, meant to agitate and confuse.  As the bulls lose themselves in the moment, surveying the land for the easiest target of its fiery wrath, an alternate pinkcape sprints up to it from behind wielding two large rods painted in a variety of colors, each with sharp, nearly invisible hooks protruding from their ends.  Rods facing sharply downward in parallel, the matador makes a final leap then lets the fullness of his weight bore the hooked rods deep enough into the lumbering beast’s back for the hooks to find purchase.  Enraged, the bull turns quickly to give chase, single-minded enough from the affront to its back to ignore all distractions from clowns, capes and confusion as it comes bearing down on the walled entryway.  Its eyes affixed to the attacker, the bull paces and butts heads with the bulwark ineffectually, stomping furiously.

Heading back towards the center of the ring, spring in its step and blood on its back, the bull’s head swivels, seeking out a new target for its rancor while ignoring the new woody passengers on its back.  Sunk properly into enough flesh to contain them, both rods dangle over the side of the animal, bouncing listlessly as it charges, to roars of appreciation from the crowd.  If only a singular hook finds purchase, the cheer is notably muted.  Should both fall to the ground — epic fail — a silence more powerful than any applause muffles all sound.  This ordeal happens three times, leading to six rods dangling across the bull’s slick, freshly red back if all attempts were successful.  The crowd goes wild.

“VIVA QUIIIIIIITO” “VIIIIIVA!!!!”

I’ve added my voice to the VIVA crew.  Why not?

From the gates, two horses gallop out regally, carrying men that could only be described as knights.  The massive horses are fully padded from head to hoof, and a leather blindfold seems to cover their eyes completely, trained apparently to follow every command from their rider blindly (hah!), without letting petty things like fear get in the way.  The knights charge out with halberds (long wooden staves with metal blades attached at the end) held aloft, taking positions on opposite sides of the ring, with bull caught in the middle.  Act one complete, the pinkcapes hustle in to safety as the bull surveys its new opponents.

Not one for thinking about anything long, it picks a target arbitrarily and charges it.  Head lowered, the full strength, speed and weight of the animal crash violently into the side of the horse sending it… nowhere.  The padding is light enough to show give with each strike, yet despite the bull colliding with the power and intensity of a small car, the horse moves back inches at most, occasionally lifting its two front hooves into the air to regain balance, but never in such a way as to imply fear or discomfort on its part.  Nonplussed, the bull makes machine-gun like jabs into the horse’s padded side, and while the strikes appear to vibrate powerfully across its entire body, pushing the horse back a foot or two with each hit, it refuses to yield.

Visibly irate, the bull doesn’t give in quickly either, but while the heavily padded horse is resisting the continued savage attacks from the bull, the knight’s using his proximity to the beast as an opportunity to wound it repeatedly with his halberd.  Every monstrous charge from the bull is met by equally damaging jabs into the creature’s back from the weapon, with far more effect.  Eventually sensing there’s a fix to this game, the animal finally backs off, taking refuge once again in the center of the ring, far from either horse.  Horses line up evenly from one another, salute the crowd and exit the ring to varying degrees of applause.  It’s finally time for the main event.

“Oh, there’s the red cape…”

Clowns and pinkcapes will return from time to time (when the matador stumbles, falls, loses cape, etc), but from this point on, it’s a battle between man and bull.

“Don’t you mean ‘man and bloody, severely weakened bull’?”

Maybe.  Its back is pretty gruesome by this point, with the slick, maroon blood flowing densely enough across the bulk of it to stand out above the jet black of its fur.  But if the animal’s exhausted or hurting in any way, the smoothness and intensity of its gait doesn’t let it show.  Either the animal hates red far more than pink, or it immediately recognizes a worthy opponent, as it’d barely employed the infamous toro hoof stomp before; the maneuver’s become a regular part of the repertoire now before each charge.  The matadors seem to work to keep the fight as close to center ring as possible, and watching the differences in techniques, flourishes and stances, the bout starts to take on an elegance that does help elevate it past simple bloodsport.

The general “use cape as a target, then move before dying” style is obviously employed by all, but each of the men seem to have his own unique style that’s at once bristling with machismo and extremely gay looking.  Several volleys pass using cape alone, and finally the sword is brandished making way for the endgame.  Done properly, a single insertion, hilt deep, from a point just behind the neck deep into the center of the animal takes it down in a single strike.  Most fail to hit the specific mark, and against expectations the bulls continues to run, unfazed, with a sword fully buried deep into its body, the hilt jutting out awkwardly and only visible from its contrast across a bloody background.

“Olé.”

Each pass through the cape earns one of these from the crowd, but compared to the verve with which the crowd is cheering Quito, the “ol-ay” may as well be “oh well.”  I wait for more energetic instances of the call of supposed appreciation, but they never come.

Darting a hand in as the toro passes through the red cape yet again, a quick grasp frees the rapier for another strike — and sometimes even a third — until the animal either collapses, dead, with a sharp jolt or falls to the ground, still kicking yet with no energy left to keep up a fight.  Legs still cycle softly, but a new blade, this time a short dagger, is broken out and quickly plunged into the creature’s head, bringing about an instant stillness from the massive creature.  New horses, this time attached to a long, black harness that flows behind them, wait as men secure the lifeless carcass to the harness.  And the Matador, freshly victorious, stands and bows, hat in the air to acknowledge the applause.

In general, all fights follow about the same pattern, with the bull showing no signs of weakness or distress until his final, shaky collapse.  In one instance, however, the bull runs freely for ten to twenty seconds after having a sword removed from behind, only to start stumbling a bit before vomiting out what looks to be gallons of blood and collapsing, shaking fitfully, on the ground.

“VIIIVAAAAA QUIITOOOOOO!” “VIIIIIVAAAAAAAA!!!”

Halftime comes and I’m oddly not terribly disturbed by the slaughter.  Pete’s not pushing to leave, but he makes it clear that he’d be ready to go if I was.  While Feria de Quito had been going on, though, we’d been in the Galapagos and I wasn’t ready yet to break away from the festivities yet, especially given the hefty price tag.

I feel an arm on my shoulder from behind as we venture outside for more beverages.

“GRINGO!  You like?!” a surprisingly tall Ecuadorian says in English with a great deal of enthusiasm.

“Si, si.  muy bien.  Excelente.   Si.”

The Ecuadorian — nearly as tall as me, which is definitely an anomaly in these parts — and his companions cheer and walk on.  They’re visibly drunk and visibly ready to be moreso.  Realizing slowly that had spoken to me in unusually clear English, I seize the opportunity to have some nagging questions answered and chase after the man.

“Hey!”

“GRINGO!” in unison, from both the English speaker and his friends/family who, it quickly becomes apparent, do not speak English nearly as well (or at all).  Carlos — the name I’m giving the English speaker as I’ve forgotten his real one completely despite how large a part he plays in the remainder of my afternoon — greets me with a warm smile and waves me over.  Shots have just been poured and there’s an extra for me.  It’s considered terribly rude in Ecuador to turn down free shots.  Or something.

“What do you think of the bulls, gringo, and our women?  We come here to watch both.”

“Great.  Both great…”

“You gringos come down here and complain, I know.  You say ‘how terrible… how brutal’ but you don’t understand our ways.”

“No, I was weirdly fine with it.  Actually the people I’ve met that complain the most are Ecuadorian women…”

“You don’t see,” he says, apparently not hearing me, “that the bull, we are not slaughtering it.  We RESPECT it.”  He speaks in Spanish to his party and they all nod solemnly.  Si.  Si.

¨Sure.¨

¨If I could, I would die like this bull.  We all would (Si, Si).  To go down fighting.  It is MAN, yes?  There is nothing else for this bull.  It is raised to fight.  To be strong.  And we respect its strength.  Here…¨ He passes me another shot, and again, I am not rude.  ¨Gringo, did you hear how they cheer when the bull is carried out?¨

¨Sure.¨

¨Gringo, this is not for the bullfighter.  This is for bull.  This is our RESPECT!  Bull!  You have fought!  You have died valiantly, yes?¨ He takes my shoulder firmly.  ¨And we RESPECT you, Bull!¨  Si.  Si.

¨So how often does the bull win?¨

¨Win?  To hit the matador? Many times, but is rare to happen here at Feria de Quito.  Because these men are they best.  But gringo, gringo.. Let me tell you.  Sometimes, a bull is SO strong and is SO a man and it fight SO well, that the bullfighter, he say ´no´¨  At this point Carlos makes a scoffing motion with his hands and looks away almost disdainfully.  ¨´Go´ he say ´Go, bull.  You are too much of a man.  You are great, bull, and my respect is so strong that I will not fight you.  Run free.´  And the bullfighter leaves and the bull does not fight again.  And I tell you, Gringo, this just happen here on Sunday.  And the crowd stand and they cheer the bull.  For its honor.  Have another, gringo.¨ Sure, sure.  Another polite round of vodka.

¨So this is something that happens a lot?¨

¨Almost never, gringo.¨

¨Oh.  Well, when the bull dies, what do they do..?  Like with the body, the meat?¨

He smiles and translates and the group starts laughing.  Is his cousin buying another round?  Who are these people?

¨Yes, gringo.  There is a big pit after the fights for cooking the bulls and you can eat the bull balls for to get strength.  Would you eat them, gringo?  For STRENGTH, ahh?!¨

¨Well.. I mean.. for strength…¨

¨No, gringo!” he cuts me off before I fully agree to eat balls.  “This bull, this is not for meat.  It is for fight.  The meat?  Is crap, is terrible.  You do not want it.  Have.. Have.¨  What number shot is this?  Shit, where´s Schedler..?  ¨The bull lives just for the fight.  When its soul is gone, is no more.. is no more..¨

¨Ok.  So this is Feria de Quito?  This is what the celebration is all about, because I´ve seen lots of parties in the street, but they don´t seem that spectacular.¨

¨pssh.  Do not go to these, gringo.  No good.  You want to see a Quito party?¨ He thinks for a second.  ¨Come.  Meet here.  After the fights.  We will see real party.¨

Score.  Seems like as good a time as any to bail and find Schedler.  Dunno if I can handle another shot right now anyway.

The testimonials of the Ecuadorians — plus a generous amount of vodka — leave me sufficiently roused for the remainder of the fights.  Rendezvousing with Pete, I attempt to impart the wisdom and traditions freshly imparted to me that drive the popularity of the bullfights (¨bull is strong.  it is MAN!¨), but short of several shots of vodka I don´t think he´s about to be swayed.

A renewed vision of the fights fully enhance the second half for me.  My ¨VIVA¨s are at least as strong as anyone else… my ¨Olé¨s just as insouciant.  The bull is a fighter! A big, bloody, stumbling fighter fending off five men on foot, two knights and a clown.  Olé!

Pete´s enthusiasm level not quite matching mine, he´s more than ready to go by the time the fights are over, but the idea of a local party seems appealing to both of us.  Carlos, of course, is nowhere to be found, but the surplus of cheap alcohol and skimpily dressed showgirls mean Pete’s not in too much of a rush to head out.  A commotion over by the entryway to the VIP section reveals my missing Ecuadorian, struggling to make his way through the gate.  His technique’s about as refined as a wasted teenager attempting to get backstage at a concert, tailing a group of Very Important People, only to get turned away while slyly attempting to enter with them.  It wouldn’t even be the worst plan if he didn’t tail every single group to make their way in, often after just being rejected mere seconds earlier.

I put my hand on his shoulder and he looks at me, wide-eyed with a crazed semi-recognition.  This person  cannot get me in here.  Carlos turns back to the door without saying a word to acknowledge me, and again begins pleading with the bouncers.  Nearby, a girl is handing out tickets to the section and I put together my best Spanish to ask for two, only to find she speaks perfect, un-accented English.

“No, no ticket for you.  For the same reason your friend can’t have any,” she says.

“Why is that?”

“Because you are drunk.”  She smiles, but doesn’t slow down.

“Oh.  Viva.”

Carlos gives up, but only after displaying an almost superhuman degree of tenacity before doing so, waiting feverishly by the doorway for close to twenty minutes before finally walking away.  I wait too, for Carlos is my own VIP entrance, a ticket to a world outside my small circle of expatriates, the laminate that frees me from the safety, sights and smells of the gringo district deep into Quito at its most visceral and real.  This all presupposes, of course, that Carlos has any idea what’s going on around him.  As he dejectedly walks away from the mecca of Very Important People, his eyes meet mine and his reaction’s warm once again.

“Grrringo.  Hello.”  He sounds sad.

“Hey.  Still hitting up the afterparty?”

“Party? … Yes.  Gringo.  Gringo.  Come.  Let’s… go.”

He’s not paying much attention as we walk together, but I nod Pete over and we follow the Ecuadorian through throngs of drunken revelers, past corner parties, police roadblocks, women dancing and men urinating.  My plastic cup of wine freshly refilled, I share some with our semi-reluctant tourguide and the swig of piquant alcohol seems to revive him a bit.

It turns out Carlos’ fluent English comes from his years playing football (the “real” American kind) for the University of Nebraska.  He returned to Ecuador, freshly educated in the States, to help his people, whose plight he felt was dire.  A long drunken conversation follows, often punctuated by Carlos either hugging me or clutching my shoulder so tightly it feels as though he’s trying to squeeze the presumed evils of America right out of me.

“Gringo.  Listen.  You don’t understand.  You are so rich.  Americans.  You have so much.  So much.  And look.  Here is nothing.”

“Well, I mean, I sold everything I had before coming down here…”

“Gringo.  Listen.”  In addition to calling me “gringo” with more frequency than anyone else has since I’ve arrived, he’s now taken to saying “Listen” after each time I speak.  Some interruptions call for a full “You’re not listening!” from him to really drive a point home.  “Listen.  It is bad here.  And worse in the countryside.  The sadness.  The..  children starving.  You cannot understand the problems.”

“…and I wasn’t feeling that great after a pretty bad break-up…”

“Listen.  There is no money for food… water, for roads.  There is… no jobs.  Gringo.”

“…and I wasn’t really that into my job, so I figured I’d come down here for a while, you know?  I totally get where you’re coming from.”

“Yes.  Yes, I like you gringo.  Listen…”

Somewhere along the line, I found myself wearing his hat.  Memories of this portion of the day remain cloudy, but sitting down on a curb there amidst the celebration of Quito we talked of life, the economy, socio-political factors affecting the precarious relationship between our countries and popular television.  And with  hindsight, all I can think of is “Man, Pete must’ve been really fucking bored.”

I follow my host’s lead as he urinates on a nearby truck, and use the fact that we’re now semi-ambulatory to remind him that somewhere, there is a party beckoning to us.

“Yes.  Yes…”  He hits the “unlock” button on his key’s remote and I jump back as the truck we’d both just defiled beeps twice.

“Oh.  That was your toilet…”

I’d assumed, based on the fact that none of us could drive that our party would be in walking distance, but this was a poor assumption apparently.  I take shotgun.  Sure he’s drunk at the wheel, but prior to the 80s in the States, that was the status quo, right?

Even I’m not falling for my drunken rationalizations.

With police everywhere, clearly Carlos knows his limits and is well-practiced at acceptable local drunk driving methods.  Shifting into gear, Carlos tears out of his spot and darts about thirty feet down the road to an intersection preceded by a crosswalk currently being utilized by five policemen.  And all my misguided imaginings of lenient attitudes towards driving while tremendously impaired in Quito are immediately dashed as he makes the mistake of not stopping until the last possible moment in a nightmarish screech, leaving the lower halves of three policemens’ bodies fully blocked from my perspective by the hood of a vehicle now idling mere inches from each of them.

When such an event transpires, three emotions apparently run across an Ecuadorian policeman’s face, clearly visible despite only occurring over the course of a single second:

1. Mortal fear
2. Complete disbelief
3. Wrath

And so with moderately civil wrath, we are descended upon by a swarm of men in black uniforms, bedecked in bright yellow vests, ostensibly to protect them from being hit by oncoming vehicles whenever making their way across a crosswalk.  The police talk fast and incomprehensibly, given my limited Spanish, and Carlos talks back just as incomprehensibly for different reasons entirely.  At their behest, he gets out, but then immediately makes his way to the back with Schedler, seemingly in no trouble and now the cops’re motioning for me to drive.

“[Have you been drinking?]” they ask in Spanish, but I comprehend.

“Si,” I say with an energetic nod to drive the point home.  They motion for me to drive.  The plan’s a horrible one, but if they’re letting us go, there’s no better time to vamos.  I can ditch the car two blocks from here when we’re out of sight.  “Uh, Si.  Well, we live close — vivimos circa de aqui — So, uh, sure…”

Making the first available right, we’re fleeing the scene of a crime with full police complicity and I seem to have been deputized to drive impaired by the local constabularies.  Certainly not in Kansas…

Red and blue lights fill my mirrors, accompanied by the shrill South American siren recognizable from so many movies, but always so foreign sounding even in person.  Ok, so maybe it is still Kansas.

Policemen on foot cluster around the police vehicle behind me.  Seven… Eight of them?  More?  Mostly, they speak amongst themselves, arguing, and I feel the weight of an intense dilemma being discussed that I’m somehow at the center of.  Carlos is quiet in the back as they grill me, but I lack the proper language skills to be sufficiently grilled which only adds to the difficulty of the situation.  Some bi-lingual good Samaritans approach to act as translators, but one of the policemen barks at them sharply and they back away while with an expression on their faces somewhere between “we tried!” and “you’re fucked!”

In liu of any real options, I encourage Pete to take several pictures.

After waiting an indeterminate amount of time, it seems some decision’s been reached leading them to motion for us to get out of the car, and we gladly acquiesce.  Pete and I do, at least — Carlos seems somewhat resistant to the idea, pushing the cop away as the policeman reaches in to pull the drunken Ecuadorian forcefully from the back seat.  Other police run to the first cop’s assistance, yelling frantically over each other as the already unstable situation finally collapses completely.  Carlos is kicking madly at the occupied police now, which seems to be almost universally illegal, and I feel Pete tap me on the shoulder.

“What do you say?  We should probably bail, eh?”

“Um.  Yeah.”

The attention of the police elsewhere, we put our heads down and melt into the crowd.  The scene, as scenes do, has created a reasonably sized cluster of onlookers that we first merge with then surpass, making our way down first one block, then another, until both new friends and new enemies are gone from our sights and our lives.  A traditional Ecuadorian fiesta would’ve been nice, but not being incarcerated in a foreign land is even nicer.  As nothing tastes better with freedom than beer, it’s good that every block has at least three or four vendors walking about.

With hindsight, I might’ve had a bit more than usual today.

The steady pop of pointlessly fired daytime fireworks reminds us that Quito must still be celebrated, and if we can’t do that at a local house party, then we can at least head to the next logical place for an authentic fiesta: an Irish pub.  Sure, Feria de Quito nights at Finn’s aren’t much different than any other night here.  But at least it’s safe.

Viva Quito.  VIVA.