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We arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador after a very long day of travel. I was very tired, but it was kind of cool to be able to say that I was in three different countries in one day (we left Venezuela and had a layover in Panama)! Our travels began at 10:00 am and ended at 11:00 pm. These kind of days always seem much harder on paper, but it’s kind of fun going through all of the different airports and meeting many different people.

I couldn’t see much of the city because it was almost midnight and very dark outside. That’s the only thing I dislike about taking a night flight to a new place. It’s very hard to get a feel for the city when you can’t really see much. I didn’t have to wait long because we had a very early appointment to meet the Embassy officials and do TV promotions. On the way to the TV station I was able to snag this shot:

That’s pretty much how the whole city looks. It’s a nice mix of old and new. Guayaquil isn’t the capital, but it is one the major cities and it sits on the coast. I’ve begun to love traveling to cities outside of the capital because it’s always there that you find great people starving to hear hip hop. The shows always tend to attract large, enthusiastic crowds. In the end I always find that the biggest complaint from them is that they don’t really have an opportunity to experience live Hip Hop shows and hear more contemporary music. So on behalf of those cities that we’ve been to that often get left out, I just want to thank The Rhythm Road and the State Department for making these kinds of programs available to the people that will appreciate it a lot! I really wish that the people that program our programs could see first hand how much this program is appreciated.

We did an interview with a local TV station to promote the show later that night. The band had to be very flexible because they couldn’t accommodate a full band in the studio. I’m proud to say that AFAR has performed our first acoustic set, with only two guitars and one of which only have 5 Strings.

Also in the picture is our Embassy official Kevin Skillin and the host of the show. It actually turned out great!

These are the ladies we had to haggle for some souvenirs… So if you get something from Ecuador you should be very gateful because these ladies drove a very hard bargain!

Here’s the venue we played called Malecon del Salado - Agora in Plaza Baquerizo Moreno

It was actually a very cool place to play. People were coming from all over during the show and by the show’s end there was standing room only!

As you know, we make Hip Hop friends everywhere that we go:

One guy even walked up and said “I wore this shirt because it looked like you”:

I must say that uh, I beg to differ!

This last picture is of the ladies from the office of the Consulate General’s office in Guayaquil that made sure we had everything we needed!

Their names are Ana Teresa, Ana Cecelia and Ana Maria. Ana Teresa voluntarily changed my name to “Dee Dee Maria”. Hey, when in Rome…!