![\"nerevs\"](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/heddersm.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWe are writing from the lobby of the Hotel Hilton Colon, located in All you need is an American face or duds and a certain The ostensible purpose of our presence in the Hilton We learned over a month ago, via the excellent reporting However, it proved difficult to pin down confirmed ticket By the time we arrived in Guayaquil, two days before Calle Victor Emilio Estrada is the place to see and It also features some of the most accommodating pharmacies With our traveling first-aid kit replenished, we wandered For our efforts, he attractive young salesgirl gave The mention of the New York team, arch rivals of the "No, no, the New England Revolution. A much better team. I "I don’t know anything about that," she answered dismissively.<\/p>\n We were not about to be dismissed. "Please, I’ve come She said she’d make some calls, but that most of the While we waited we looked around at the team gear on We decided to purchase an adjustable mesh baseball cap, Finally, our young friend got off the phone and informed This was not particularly good news. Machala is She looked at us as if we had wandered into PLO headquarters We were not done yet, however. Jumping into a The Hilton Guayaquil is a typical third world luxury Suddenly, on the seven-foot projector TV set up against The Revolution<\/p>\n Vs. Emelec<\/p>\n Tuesday, 7pm, Estadio Capwell<\/p>\n Not to be missed!<\/p>\n There was<\/em> going to be a game in Guayaquil! The next Stay tuned…..<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We are writing from the lobby of the Hotel Hilton Colon, located in a zone of recently constructed high rises on the outskirts of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Of course, the Dowbrigade is not staying at the Hilton. but as many penny-pinching … Continue reading
\n a zone of recently constructed high rises on the outskirts of Guayaquil,
\n Ecuador. Of course, the Dowbrigade is not staying<\/em> at the Hilton.
\n but as many penny-pinching adventurers know, luxury hotels in third world
\n countries are repositories of all sorts of useful resources, including
\n free maps, English language newspapers, travel agencies, clean, well-provisioned
\n bathrooms, poolside buffets, Wi-Fi access points, classy embossed stationary,
\n travel tips, directions, abandoned paperback reading material and shuttles
\n to and from the local airport. They are also great spots to do some serious
\n people-watching, if the people you want to watch are international jet-setters
\n and the local social and economic elite.<\/p>\n
\n insouciant confidence to walk right in as if you owned the place, and
\n take a seat among the privileged and pampered ruling class. If you have
\n the balls and situational morality to go a step further and scrawl a
\n room number and indecipherable signature on chits and receipts, a panoply
\n of goods and services are available for the asking.<\/p>\n
\n today is to track down some concrete information on the events that brought
\n us to Guayaquil in the first place; a series of preseason confrontations
\n between our hometown New England Revolution and some of the top local teams in this soccer-mad nation astride the earth’s midrift bulge. Turns out that the second
\n phase of our Three-Sport Pre-Season Tour has become a bit more
\n problematic than we had anticipated.<\/p>\n
\n of Boston Globe ace soccer correspondent Frank Dell’Apa<\/a>, that the New
\n England Revolution were planning a two week pre-season trip to Ecuador
\n and had arranged friendly matches against four of the Ecuadorian First
\n Division teams, including the two strongest and most popular sides; Barcelona
\n Football Club and Emelec. The attraction for the Revolution was the year-round
\n summer climate, the high level of club-team play here, and the cheap
\n prices. In fact, it was this news that inspired the Dowbrigade to book
\n his own trip to South America for the same dates.<\/p>\n
\n information on the Ecuadorian end. We called several close friends and
\n football fanatics and asked them to pick up tickets to the Barcelona
\n and Emelec games. They reported back that not only were tickets not on
\n sale, nobody seemed to know anything about the games or the visit of
\n the American team. Of course, we realized that Ecuadorians were famously
\n disorganized, and loved leaving things for the last minute. Besides,
\n our airline tickets were non-refundable, and we were locked into the
\n dates.<\/p>\n
\n the first game was supposedly scheduled, we were beginning to wonder
\n if the games were the athletic equivalent of vaporware, all rumor and
\n no reality. So our first morning in country, we headed down to the local
\n strip, or at least the upscale version, to try to pin things down once
\n and for all.<\/p>\n
\n be seen in Guayaquil. Aside from the new mega-malls dotting the outskirts
\n of the city, this is the street most like Miami in the entire country.
\n A drunk waking up from a three-day bender with temporary amnesia would
\n have trouble believing he was not in a swank shopping district in some
\n Hispanic city in the States. Small, name brand boutique shuffled in between
\n American chains and fast food joints. KFC, Burger King, Dominos and Dunkin’
\n Donuts (the only place in Guayaquil to get a real bagel). The Mac Center,
\n where we replaced our iBook’s power adapter when we crushed the plug
\n in the dark on our last trip. Travel agencies, fancy Scandinavian furniture
\n stores, banks, bookstores and bars on every block. On Friday and
\n Saturday nights the scions of Ecuador’s richest families cruise slowly
\n up and down the avenue in late model 4x4s, looking for girls, parties,
\n or something out of the ordinary to do. <\/p>\n
\n in the free world, a great place to find exotic, discontinued or withdrawn
\n drugs unavailable in the United States. International pharmaceutical
\n companies have long used South America as a dumping ground for expired,
\n deregulated or potentially dangerous drugs they can no longer legally
\n sell in closely regulated markets in North America and Europe. Some
\n of our old favorites and all-time hits, long since vanished from drug
\n store
\n shelves at home, are still available, no questions asked and no prescription
\n required.<\/p>\n
\n into the local headquarters of the Barcelona soccer squad, which in addition
\n to team offices and reception rooms, features a street-level store front
\n selling tickets and team gear. We sauntered up to the receptionist and
\n identified ourself as an American reporter in town to cover the preseason
\n games of our local professional soccer team, the New England Revolution.<\/p>\n
\n us a blank stare. "The Revolution?" she asked, as though we were asking
\n to sign up for an armed insurrection against the Ecuadorian government,
\n "I don’t know anything about that. Do you mean the Metro Stars? I think
\n they are coming for a match in June."<\/p>\n
\n Revs, bothered us more than her lack of information on the games we wanted
\n to see.<\/p>\n
\n know they are in Guayaquil RIGHT NOW. They arrived Friday, and are supposed
\n to play a friendly match against Barcelona on Thursday."<\/p>\n
\n all the way from Boston for this game. My editor confirmed the
\n dates directly from the team officials. Isn’t there someone who
\n might know? Perhaps a local soccer kingpin, someone with their fingers
\n on the pulse of everything soccer-related in Ecuador. If I go home without
\n the story, I’ll lose my job!"<\/p>\n
\n team directors were in a very important meeting upstairs and were not
\n to be interrupted.<\/p>\n
\n display; caps, mugs, banners, towels, lighters, T-shirts, visors and
\n trays, all in Barcelona’s canary yellow and displaying the BSC logo.<\/p>\n
\n not because we were in any way a Barcelona rooter, but in a good-natured
\n attempt to curry local favor and get in a dig at our wonderful wife
\n at the same time. Upon her arrival in the States, Norma
\n Yvonne became a vociferous fan of the hated New York Yankees. She
\n claimed it was because all their gear featured her initials (NY), but
\n we knew
\n it was only because of the horrified disgust on our face whenever she
\n walked into the room in her Yankee gear. She couldn’t be less interested
\n in baseball as a sport. She was, however, a lifelong fan of Emelec,
\n Barcelona’s arch-rival and a team nicknamed "The Millionaires." Tit
\n for tat.<\/p>\n
\n us, "You were correct. Barcelona will be playing the Revolution on Thursday.
\n The meeting going on right now upstairs is to decide whether the game
\n will be played in Machala or Portoviejo."<\/p>\n
\n four hours to the south, and Portoviejo five hours to the north. Only
\n in Ecuador, we thought, would a team wait until two days before and
\n international match to decide where the game would be played. But at
\n least it confirmed that the team was in Ecuador. She gave us a phone
\n number to call later that afternoon to learn the outcome of the meeting.
\n Before leaving we took a flyer and asked if she knew anything about the
\n game against Emelec the following day.<\/p>\n
\n and asked where we could get a good kosher meal. We decided to quit while
\n we were ahead and left.<\/p>\n
\n taxi, we asked to go to the Hilton Hotel, on the theory that even if
\n the team was not staying there, there would be somebody who knew about
\n the games. Neither the doorman nor the front desk could help us out,
\n so we headed for the bar.<\/p>\n
\n hotel, with a 12 story atrium, externally exposed elevators, fake Chinese
\n porcelain statuary and Persian rugs. The barkeep was happy to talk
\n about soccer, although he seemed surprised to learn that they even played
\n "Fut-bowl" in the US ("You mean American<\/em> futbowl?").
\n When we informed him that the US side was ranked in the top ten of the
\n world, and that they could take the Ecuadorian national team with one
\n leg tied behind their backs, he looked as if we had just accused the
\n Pope of being a communist pedophile. By this point our frustration was
\n starting to show.<\/p>\n
\n the back wall of the bar area, we saw the news we most wanted to see
\n flashed across the screen in four-foot red lettering, like a message
\n from God. <\/p>\n
\n day! We had a time and a place, and were sure, since nobody knew that
\n the game was even on, that there would be plenty of tickets available.
\n We felt redeemed, rewarded, vindicated. We thanked the bartender, paid
\n for our beer (resisting the temptation to sign with a room number), and
\n headed out into the gathering darkness of an equatorial evening. Once
\n more, the game was afoot, the ball was in play, and we could look forward
\n to a night of top-level international soccer featuring our favorite home
\n team and Norma Yvonne’s binky. Little did we know.<\/p>\n