Futbol in the streets.

This week marks the 189th anniversary celebration of Loja's independence from Spain. They make a habit of celebrating everything here which is one of the best parts about this culture. Most importantly it means we have two more days off to enjoy our stay here. It also means we get to witness a variety of local events which mark the celebration. These events include parades,dancing, neighborhood by neighborhood celebrations, sports competitions and of course lots of drinking.
Our neighborhood, I forget what its called, had the opportunity to host events last weekend. We go to see scantily clad women dancing on a stage in the street accompanied by karaoke backed music and lots of young drunk people. It was fun but we mostly enjoyed the music from inside our apartment.
The next day we got to see part of the neighborhood soccer tournament which took place in the main street by our house. The road was blocked, goals set up and lines painted from curb to curb. The game is actually a little different than real futbol in that the field is only about 40 yards long and the ball is smaller and hard as a rock. I made the mistake of trying to kick one back to some people playing in the park one day and I just about broke my foot. The craziest part is that most of them wear Chuck Taylor type shoes with worn tread and very little support.
The games are pretty intense because the field is so small. They were using the high curbs like a hockey wall, kicking pushing and shoving each other. Its actually quite amazing that they weren't all covered with road rash and skinned knees. Meanwhile, the sidewalks were lined with fans and onlookers eating ice cream and drinking beers. It was a fun sight.
On sunday we also got a chance to check out part of the Equavoly tournament in our neighborhood. Equavoly is an odd hybrid of volleyball with only 3 players per team and more lax rules about how you can hit the ball. We'll try to get some pics of this up later. Its fun to watch and hugely popular everywhere in Ecuador.
Look for more photos of the parade on other festivities later this week.