Announcing New 2008 Olympic Games Event: Guayaquileño Bus Jumping!

It´s taken me a little while to work out my system of transport to and from the Luchadores foundation, but today I finally figured it out. Sort of. It´s easy really, I can catch a Selectivo ($0.25) bus on the main street near my house and take it straight to about two blocks from the foundation. No problem. Except for one thing. Buses in Guayaquil don´t stop. Wait, that´s not quite true. Buses in Guayaquil don´t stop for men. ¨What?¨you may ask. It´s no lie, men are expected to swing onto and jump off of moving buses as they near their stop. Sure, the bus stops a little, I mean, the conductor does put his foot on the break and everything but by no means does it reach a near stop. I attribute it to the machismo of Ecuadorian (and all of Latin American) society in that men are expected to do manly feats on a regular basis to reconfirm their masculinity. And heaven forbid you make someone wait while they´re riding a bus, I mean it´s not like everything else in this country doesn´t take twice as long as it should anyway.

So as I´ve been watching this cultural phenomenon in my first week and a half here I´ve been dreading the moment when it´s expected of me to do the same. That moment came today on my way home from work. I asked the bus driver to stop, and sure enough, he puts his foot on the break for me, in a gesture of good faith. So I go for it, fling myself out the door and go running down the street, so as to not fall over. To my credit I didn´t fall over, but I´m pretty sure that I pulled something in my leg because, boy, about four hours later it had completely stiffened up and has been just killing me ever since. I don´t know how they do it, I hope I get better. I gotta admit though, it was awefully exciting. But lets be honest, is it really worth it? I guess I´m asking a bunch of gringos and gringas... you guys wouldn´t understand.