Yo te daré, te daré LIGA hermosa...

So I'm not sure if anyone not affiliated with South American football (soccer, for the rest) heard that Wednesday night was the finals of the club championship Copa Libertadores; we couldn't have missed it if we'd wanted to, since Quito was playing brasilian club Fluminense in an away game.

We'd gotten a late start, and - I'm ashamed to admit - missed the first 20 minutes of the game, but caught the rest in the main plaza Foch in the Mariscal. Since Quito had won its home game 4:2, they could afford to lose by as much as 2 goals and still go into overtime and penalties, which is exactly what happened. the air was thick with muttered prayers as each successive wave of mostly brasilian attacks kept failing.

... and then they went into penalties, and we found ourselves standing right in the middle of the crowds on Foch, watching the thing go down on a big screen. Beer and other drinks went flying all over the place, as the Quito goalkeeper held not one, not two, but three out of four Brasilian shots!

And now that song keeps going round and round in my head:

Yo te daré, te daré LIGA hermosa, te daré una cosa, una cosa que empieza con L, con I, con G, con A... LIGA campeon! (see & listen here)

Aaanyway, in December, every continent will send their club championship winner to Japan for the Club World Cup, and I know whom I'll be rooting for!

Right, in other news, I've just arrived in sweltering Puerto Lopez, where the mozzies are already having a go at me.

To summarise:

Good idea - buying a 12 USD ejecutivo ticket and staying on the airconditioned bus for 12 hours fom start to finish rather than changing buses in-between and saving... all of 4 USD!

Bad idea - watching the mine rollercoaster scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, while the bus rolls from side to side and hits potholes and narrowly avoids collisions; I felt as though I was in the movie!

Worst idea - importing MP3-capable mobile phones with loudspeakers into South America.


Internet here is not very fast, so you can take a few days' holiday from complimenting me about my photos ;-)))