The President Has Landed

July 2, 2010

Correa's security lands on the beach

The coolest thing happened today.

A military helicopter circled our compound early this morning. This in itself is unusual, since any aircraft flying along the coast is a rare sight.  And a Blackhawk-type whirly doing re-con over the Jardines de Olon most definitely caught our attention. Bobby's construction workers said it was President Correa's helicopter, but we thought they were pulling our leg.

Then, a few hours later, another, smaller helicopter started circling. Our friends Scott & Pat had stopped 

Scott, Larry, Todd, Kelly & Harris

by, along with another friend, Larry (who was visiting from the States, and owns property in the Ecuador highlands).  We joked that it was probably either a high ranking Ecuadorian official (many own property along this stretch of the beach), or some show-off gringo investors.

Blurry, because I was running too.

The helicopter circled a little more, and then landed on the beach by our house.  The whole town came running to see what it was about. About 4 military guys got out, and everyone crowded around the helicopter, curious to see the inside, and pose for pictures.  We asked around, and finally figured out that they were guarding President Correa, who was at the nearby church on the cliff worshiping, and he was planning to visit Olon afterwards.

Sure enough, the big army helicopter (the one we had seen earlier in the morning) landed in the soccer field about an hour later - so the whole town ran from the beach to the field.

He didn't get out of it (more army guys), but I guess he came down the hill in car, because eventually he was out by the road in a throng of people, and later we watched him get in the helicopter and take off. The locals seemed kind of nonchalant  about it (my impression:"yeah, this happens all the time")...but I thought it was thrilling.  No doubt, a political photo op - but still cool to think he would just show up here unannounced (well of course, it could have been announced beforehand on the town’s  loudspeakers - we wouldn't have known/understood if that was the case). 

Unfortunately, I did not get a good snapshot of the President, though I have a snippet of him in a video I took.

 

Correa's helicopter

  

The gal in yellow was shy about
having her pic taken,
 but giggled about it.

 

"Matching" is a flexible concept along the Costa.
It's one of the great things about living here....
you can throw on anything.
You should see what I'm wearing.