Mayoral Election Day

I mentioned on the 13th that today was mayoral election day, not just in Guayaquil but all over the country. I went into town to see how it was going, but it took such an incredibly long time to get there on the bus I only had time for a plate of arroz con camarón (rice with shrimp) at the Malecón and a visit to Iguana Square before I had to get the bus back again because I'd arranged to speak to Dave on video at 4pm my time - and even then the bus took an unexpected diversion on the way back so I didn't actually get back to the flat until 4.45! (Luckily Dave was still online and able to speak.)

The reason why the journey was so long was directly due to the election, however; I'd never seen traffic that bad before. It was worst not in the city centre itself but just outside it. The city centre didn't seem that much different to normal, but just before we got to that, we passed one section where the pavements were crowded with street food stalls and other street sellers and pedestrians. I was surprised because I never saw anyone waving flags or driving past in election cars with loudspeakers going, like I had in the streets leading up to today. I thought today would be the climax of all of that. Maybe most of the voting actually took place in the morning.