ECUADOR: Oh! South! London!

I'M IN: EL Rincon del Viajeros, Otavalo. Spotless private rooms and a dead posh restaurant serving steaks and mexican food for $3, mad American chef who bores you stupid about poker. Nice but a bit quiet.

 

I've met many people in Ecuador - muchachas from Switzerland, the States, Israel, Germany, and Ecuador, and chicas from Denmark, Germany, the States, Israel, Canada, Ecuador.  Plenty of English.

 

And it's easy for me.  I say I'm from London and it's true, more or less.  They ask where exactly, and I tell them about Croydon.

 

It actually carries quite a bit of kudos.  London's cool, so I must be too.  I'm not going to correct them.

 

But I recoiled in horror when I overheard a bloke from Milton Keynes telling some folk that HE was 'from London' as well.

 

I guess it must be tiring trying to explain exactly where it is, and the fact that you can pretty much guess that no-one will have heard of it, but to me it displayed a sad lack of pride in his roots.  Surely being from somewhere perceivedly 'exotic' would be a story in itself?

 

People slate Croydon all the time but it's where I live, and I'll back it all the way.  The same for Palace, naturally, who no-one's heard of, even the English.

 

And when you start explaining things to people, like why my team are called Crystal Palace, you realise that (a) you know a worrying amount about it, but also that (b) your pride is entirely justified.

 

I've also had real trouble making people understand my accent, especially the Europeans, for whom I speak too quickly, and use weird phrases.

 

Two German girls, both about 22 and training to be doctors, turned up at the hostal.  The Secret Garden is great in that it encouraged people to get to know each other, because the food was served at a long table and everyone mucks in.

 

So naturally I started teaching them some slang, and generally winding them up.  And then about twelve of us went out to play pool.  Later on, their German friend sidled up to me, a bit confused.  He wasn't sure where they'd gone.  Did I know?

 

No idea.  I hadn't seen them since we played Killer.  Did they say they were leaving?  Maybe, he said.

 

They've gone somewhere, somewhere they needed to go, because they'd told him.  And they left in a hurry.

 

But where, he asked, could he find this 'slash'?