Disfruta el momento

Disfruta el momento. Enjoy the moment.

When you are living and sleeping in the cluttered, smelly confines of
your mechanics garage, one may think that is is difficult to really
enjoy the moment. I have to admit, there are times when my heart aches
to be on the road with Kumu eating up the miles like she knows how,
just the two of us, exploring and drinking in all that South America
has to offer. That being said we ARE living in our mechanics cluttered
yard and we DONT have a working engine so like the old saying says,
"When life throws you lemons, you make lemonade". I LOVE making
lemonade.

We have definitely been making the most of things here in Conocoto, a
suburb of Quito. Surrounded by new friends, we have been learning
about their country and enjoying some of their past times. Our new
friend Juan, owner of the local VW club has been overwhelmingly
helpful. Not only did he help us realize a truly important part of our
trip by taking us to the Mitad Del Mundo (equator) he has taken us to
meet his friends, introduced us to the rest of the VW club, forced me
into singing karaoke, danced up a storm and most importantly taken us
to an insane national football (soccer) game (see below for more
details on that crazy night!!

Meanwhile, Diego, our trusty mechanic has gone over countless options
with us about our engine, finally settling on ordering parts from the
United States to be sent to a friend in Miami who would Fed-Ex them
here ASAP. He has taught Andrew many of the ins and outs of our water
cooled Vanagon, while keeping us informed on the local Ecuadorian
news. Diego and his wife Paulo kindly invited us to their children's
school to watch them in their pep rally and race around the block.
The other two mechanics, Santi and Jose, have been endlessly patient
as Andrew slowly talks to them in Spanish (which is improving
drastically day by day with these guys).

We are now regulars at a nearby internet cafe and have enjoyed many
walks up to the square testing out all the different Panaderias
(bakeries), and I have now officially seen all three original Star
Wars movies!

All in all, if we have learned anything from this trip it is to go
with the flow, for many times the best times are those not planned
days in advanced, but rather the ones you stumble upon unannounced and
unprepared.

The middle of the world!!!! After driving over 32000 kilometers we
made it to this huge milestone!

Watching the crazy goings-on in Diego's Garage. Putting a new ( okay, still old, but newer than the old one) body on a newer chassis.

Hey mom's! It could be worse!

Sophia (Diego's oldest) getting ready to cheer her heart out at the school pep rally

Diego and his kids Sophia, Martina and Juan-Diego after the rally

Which brings me to the soccer game. We watched two teams from Quito play in the National League. There are some pretty huge supporters from both sides, but we were on the "Liga" side. We started off the evening joining all the Liga fans on a long parade to the stadium. During the parade some crazy fans paint bombed the police! Spraying them head to toe in bright red paint!! We thought that might be the end of the night right there, but surprisingly nothing came of it, except for arresting the perpetrators, and the parade went on as planned.

Graffiti on the way to the stadium "I only want to live".

As we were parading the Liga soccer team drove through in the team bus, it was crazy to see the fanatical fans pounding on the bus and cheering them on.

The parade down one of the main streets

To give you a little perspective on the crazy fans here is a little video of the Liga team coming into the stadium! I think the Liga team fans were the crazy ones as on all sides of the crowd the police were lined with their full face helmets and big shields! The other team had hardly any police. We didn't sit down the whole game, and the Liga fans didn't cease chanting and cheering for one second throughout the whole 90 minute game!

At the end of the game, we tried to head out early and avoid the crowds. However, because there is so much animosity between the teams, they had to let out the other team first while penning up all the Liga fans for about 20 minutes so there wouldn't be fights after the game! We were right up front near the doors and the line of police when people started yelling and pushing, singing a chant that basically said "hey police, when you get home your girlfriend is going to be in bed with another man!"
Our friend Juan suddenly started urging us towards the mens bathroom and a girl in front of me anxiously said, "cover your face and mouth, they are going to spray gas!". We hustled into the bathroom and I looked back to see a night stick raised in the air. I held my breath for a few seconds before they opened the gates and the antsy crowd rushed forward, all problems evaporating into the night.

As for the engine status: right now we are just waiting on the parts. Turns out we had some burnt valves and needed to get them machined so they would make a proper seal in the cylinder heads. Andrew is busy cleaning the engine and we were just informed that the head gasket set coming from Miami will arrive tomorrow morning or evening (depending on customs) and we hope to be on our way by Wednesday or Thursday!