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Published: July 11th 2005
Ruined!
In the morning we actually went to the most important Inca ruins in Ecuador. However, the football won in the overall excitement competitionIf theres one thing any self respecting tourist should do when in Latin America, its not climb a volcano, its not see some poxy Inca ruins (although we did that this morning,) its go see a
Football Match I´m telling you guys, if you thought Birmingham supporters were wild, you aint seen nothing till you seen football in Latin America! My story begins....
Me, Rich and an intrepid American decided to get tickets to a local derby quarter-final cup match. On arrival, about 40 mins before kick off, the stadium looked about half full, so we found a nice empty spot in the standing area on the side of the goal and settled down, waiting for some action and atmosphere.
We should have guessed from the bits of torn t-shirts hanging from the 25ft high wire security fence between us and the pitch, and the complete absence of security guards (on our side of the fence at least) that this was gonna live up to our already high hopes. A few minutes later the sounds of the salsa band by the pitch was drowned out, as the die hard, fans with scarred faces and with drums
Arch enemies
The Incas had indeed mastered the art of amazing buildings, but they never figured out the arch. or the wheel for that matter.
And these are 2 of the 3 other students in our class. and flags a plenty entered the stadium. And came over to where we were! Result!
We wanted atmosphere and boy did we get it! The crowds, about 15,000 by kick off were WILD! Climbing up past barbed wire on the security fence and pulling down fences between unregulated stands, they were going loco before it had even started.
Supporters wielded all sorts of weapons, and when our home team got the first goal...
BOOM! THE CROWD GOES WILD!!! All around us people pulled the triggers on fire extinguishers, swinging them crazily in the air, set off fire works and fire crackers (right in the stand) and set fire to anything they could lay their hands on! Holding aloft flaming newspapers in the middle of the crowd which was now a mosh pit, the celebrations were unlike those seen in Blighty! And then we went two nil up! Go, go Cuenca!
But lo! Within five minutes of the second half starting, the enemy scored THREE goals. Three! Unbelievable. A horrible tension filled the air before the crowd started to sing again, and no more goals were scored. At 90 minutes, the game looked
Ingapirca Aqueduct
Those pesky Incas had got an Aqueduct too!
over. With enough yellow cards dished out to cover the pitch, the familar echo of
It´s all over...
hung in the air, and as the timer flicked to NINETY THREE minutes, CUENCA SCORED!!!
This time the fence protecting the pitch became a climbing wall as everyone rushed onto it hauling it forwards and back. They seriously looked like demented crazed animals! And as the final whistle went, Cuenca stormed through to the semi final (on aggregate) , scheldule for this Wednesday!
Look out for the Wednesday blog-the next match is gonna be bigger, crazier and we are gonna be right in the thick of it! What a beautiful game!
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anonymous
non-member comment
sounds bloody crazy!!that tis an experience!I have broadband in my room now, oh the joy of it!!set up and finally got a keyboard today, so can send you guys the odd snap of us back in blighty, now got a spangle cam too, plus shall be good responding boy!!love to go to a footy match like that one and the buildings look great!gonna read older blogs and see what els you up to, in a bit dog shit!!