Part 3 - The girl from Manta

In Quito, Ecuador, they have women that must be in their 50s (at least) running full court games with young men.  I like to attribute anything odd to the altitude there.  Maybe it's kinder to old age for some reason. For those that don't know, Quito is the 2nd highest capital in the world (right below Kingston, Jamaica?).  At 5280 feet, Denver is a mile above sea level.  Quito is at 9350 feet.  In a valley.

Carolina Park hoops

But Quito must not have believed I was old though, because those 9350 feet certainly weren't kind to me. Three weeks of acclimation, and the altitude still left me breathless both literally and figuratively.  On one of my first visits to the courts of Parque Carolina, despite being new, I was quickly picked up for a full court game.  Now, Ecuadoritos are generally short, so to them, at 6 feet tall with an athletic build, I probably looked like a great pick up.  And in any case, we had an excellent point guard, 2 solid guys that hustled on every play, and an explosive 2 guard - the girl from Manta.  The girl from Manta with the sick handle, a deadly jumper, and absolutely no fear in the paint.  We couldn't lose! We lost.  That fifth guy could barely get past half court, and as great as she was, the girl was no Vic Hung 33*.

I've played quite a few terrible games in my life, but I think this might have been the worst.  I felt terrible.  I was the Ecuadorian version of the tall goofy European center that didn't speak the language and could only dribble with a fish.

Practice!

Afterwards, the Girl from manta changed her shoes and came over to where somehow, despite the game having long since ended, I was still being terrible at basketball. Now as Ecuadorian water is patently evil and I had somehow forgotten how eyes and legs worked, I asked her where I could get a drink.  She just smiled politely and motioned for me to follow her to a nearby store.  And then, as we walked off the court, they started whistling behind us.  She giggled and looked back at them, then looked at me and once again, she smiled.  Except this time it was more that smile where it's in their eyes rather than in their lips.  THAT smile.

What?

So despite my best Ivan impression (Eddie was an underrated movie), the Girl from manta had taken an interest in me.  Gave me her number, told me to call her for drinks and everything.  And there was the epiphany - the moral of the story, and we all know it's true:  The key to getting girls is failing spectacularly.

Anyway, while we were getting that drink, I remarked that she was very good and she said that she had better be.  Big surprise - she was on the national team.  Three countries down.

And honestly, at first, I was quite impressed with her.  I mean, she was very, very good.  Consider this, the national team probably has the 12 or 15 best basketball players in the country on it.  That means that at worst, she would have ranked - on a list of 7.5 million people - in the top 15.  The girl from Manta was better than roughly 99.9996 percent of 7.5 million Ecuadoritas at basketball.

And I caused her to lose.

Now, who could blame me, I was more impressed with me.

Yeah, well, shut up, I still got her number. (we'll just ignore that nothing much  really came of it).


*Remind me to link this to the post I make about Vic Hung 33.
...

fin part 3

-Fahd