Cocktails & Cockfights

After Banos, Joe and I decided to head back to our home away from home: The Lodge with Tom and Mariela. Returning to the place really does give me a sense of regularity and comfort that is usually absent from my travels. Being with Tom and Mariela there adds a familial feeling that too is missing on the road.
The days are spent doing much of the same stuff that I have been doing on/off since I was first here with Pete in April: entertaining guests, relaxing, and doing a bit of work on the various projects around the lodge. One highlight being a night that Joe & I were holding down the fort and had a long chat over dinner with the Israeli Ambassador to Ecuador and his wife, who along with one other person, were the only guests for the night. Interestingly enough, he did not reveal his prestigous position to us until the end of the dinner--most likely due to the fact that Joe looks like he is running with Al Qaeda.
We also had some good times with some of the Ecuadorians, whom we work with at the lodge. Javier, who is a guide there had a surprise party thrown for him by his mother, Carmen, who also works at the lodge. As an invited guest, I showed up to his house and was fortunate enough to be an active participant in a b-day party Ecuatoriana-style. Tons of great home cooked food, and a beer fueled dance off in the family room. Salsa and other latin beats blared through the sound system: the TV speakers. Normally fancying myself as a decent dancer, I definitely looked the part of the lone rhythmless whiteboy in the presence of these booty shaking Ecuadorians. I hadn't sweated out like this to music in someone's family room since I realized that celebrating New Years Eve with your parents at home wasn't trendy anymore, last year.

Nothing picques my interest quite like a shady underground activity in South America and so when one of our worker friends at the lodge invited Joe and I to attend a cockfight held just outside of town, we readily agreed. Although feeling a bit guilty about going to an event that many would not appreciate its nature (especially Tom and Mariela), I still felt that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to witness such a fabled Latin American pastime.

The event was held in the backyard of a house near town, where the owner had built a minature colisseum to host these monthly events. It was everything and a little more of what you would expect to see at something like this--cock weigh-ins, pre-fight trash talking, and serious betting going on. Oddly the event seemed to be quite the family affair with many children and old women enjoying the fun. We were also surprised to see many of the worker's from the lodge present at what we thought would draw a seedier crowd.
All I have left on my Latin American checklist is a Mexican donkey show and I can consider myself a cultured man.

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Dear PV Readers,

I am trying to wrap the last of retroactive posts, which should only be one or two more before I get to my real time accounts of life in my newly acquired location: the Middle East.
Talk soon,

Sheik Brian