Señor Presidente

I want to share a bit about yesterday: election day. Back in October was the first presidential election day here in Ecuador. On that day, the choices were narrowed down from around 20 candidates to two. Yesterday was the "segunda vuelta"--the second go-around--when the new president was elected. The competition was between Alvaro "Alvarito" Noboa and Rafael Correa.

Noboa is a short, round, incredibly wealthy man who owns the companies that produce the mojority of wheat and salt products among other things. Noboa isn't good-looking, he's not very eloquent and he's older than his opponent. He is good at waving his money around. On the political side of things he's a righty.

Correa, on the other hand, is young, handsome, charismatic, intelligent, etc. He doesn't have the money that Noboa has, but his credentials are fantastic.

He's a professor at one of the best Universities in Ecuador. He's a lefty. He's not too fond of George "W" and he's buddies with Chavez.

I called it awhile back. I really didn't get into the election thing too much (I don't really enjoy politics), and so I didn't have a favorite candidate. But it just seemed too obvious to me that Correa would win. Everywhere I looked there were neon green "Dale Correa!" (Give us Correa!) signs. And almost everyone I talked to was for him. There was only a thin section of Ecuador along the coast that was in favor of Noboa. I'm not too sure what will happen with the country, the economy, education, etc. with Correa as president, but it sure will be interesting to witness (that is, if the U.S. doesn't ban its citizens from traveling here...just kidding).

Actually though I'm not sure what will become of the U.S.'s relationship with Ecuador. Until now, Ecuador has had a great relationship with the States. After all, it's the only country that has been allowed to use the US dollar as its currency. That says a lot. So right now a lot of possible changes are floating around in the atmosphere here in Ecuador.

The only thing I'm almost 100% sure about is that Noboa will make sure that the price of bread, pasta and salt goes up to punish people for choosing Correa.