The individual event finished today - with Amr Khaled Khalifa coming out with a solid performance to take out 2nd seeded Egyptian Ali Farag in a long, tight 4 set match. Was great squash to watch - both players showing the necessity of good length and taking the ball in short at the right time - and was a good battle with a huge croud at the Condado Shopping Centre in Quito. Marwan El Shorbagy took out Pakistani Farhan Zaman for 3rd and Charles Sharpes defeated Aditya Jagtap of India in straight sets for 5th.

Farag (2) on left and Khalifa (1) on right.

This is Khalifa straight after win...

Teams event beginning tomorrow we have Guatamala first up - at the Quito Tenis y Golf Club - should be a good battle, and we are looking forward to the challenge. On Tuesday we play Mexico who are 6th seeds (we are 11) on the Glass Court so we had a hit there today for training instead of the normal courts - should be a good match up so we will be sure to give it our absolute best and let you know how it goes.

Aside from the squash we have had some good stories to share - one of which was Bryce, Lance and my journey to the shopping centre today for training... we jumped in a car at the hotel with one of the hotel driver people and off we go behind Anthony and Paul who are in a hotel car as well - and they are driving quite fast as people over here do... Our driver is trying to stick with Paul and Anthony's and eventually goes through a blatant red light (looks first, no one is coming so shoots straight through) and all of a sudden we hear a siren behind us. The guy puts on his seatbelt and swears and puts his foot down a bit pretending it's not him.... at the next traffic lights (he stops...) the police (POLICIA) pulls up next to us and he just refuses going through red light. We pull over, he gets out and has a huge argument, eventually comes back all angry with a ticket and drives us really calmly most of the way to Shopping centre - apart from when he overtook a bus on the wrong side of the road when a car was coming! Gooood experience!

Ecuador (you may or may not be aware) is spanish for EQUATOR. This is because the "dead centre" of the world is located here - 0 longitude, 0 lattitude!

We were lucky enough to on Saturday (Sunday nz time) take the 20 minute trip from the club to the centre of the earth - and the northern hemisphere! The natives found the Equator a few hundred years back - with none of the technology we have today. This original line is still there - but with the aid of gps and such technology it was found that the equator was in fact 200m away... 200m! We thought it was pretty impressive that with no tools but their minds and their eyes - the locals managed to find the equator that pretty much is correct!!

There is just an orange line along the equator - and they say that on one side the water goes one way and the other side goes the other way - and straight down in the middle!! It's true!! We got some cool photos of us at the equator... really was a cool experience, did some jumps over the equator... Northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere... etc etc!

My personal favourite photo of us all since we've been here - just relaxing on the equator...

Julie's (Paul's mum) finger in the bottom of the photo - but in front of the monument which marks 0 0 0 latitude! Bryce and me are in the North and Lance and Paul in the South!



Training.... its ok to leave your wallet and glasses on the ground over here!



Best photo we got of the equator - speaks for itself :).

So that's all from us for today - hope you enjoyed our experience - it was a goody! Looking forward to tomorrows match and we will try update tomorrow night if we get the opportunity :)

Take care all!

PS. If my Aunty/Uncle is reading this I hope your half marathon went well! :)