ECUADOR
G
Gnar lip and big vert = Peter Hewitt into the pipe.
THE PARK WAS INSANE.
MOST OF THE BEST SHIT TO SKATE
WAS NOT BUILT WITH SKATING
IN MIND AT ALL.
Sparky.
frontside invert on the hip next to the
fullpipe on the cover of Thrasher about
three years ago, and that Phelps had
found it. When I saw that photo I
remember thinking that I was going to
skate there someday.
My friend Rick and I started planning
for the trip in January. We wanted to get a
big crew together to barge South America
with as many bros as possible. After
weeks of phone calls and ticket searches,
we had the crew on lock. There turned
out to be 12 of us: Partanen, Bailey, Tino
Razo, Brewce Martin, Puleo, Hewitt, Rick
Charnoski, Rhino, Preston Maigetter, Evan
Becker, Scott Smiley, and myself.
We were so amped to ride on the first day
that nobody remembered the sunblock. The
FACE sun is unforgiving there and everyone got
burnt to hell. Another tip is to keep your
wallet in your front pocket; there were a
few pick-pocket incidents. Some hombres
had a field day, charging up $5,000.00 on a
credit card, and Tino is still stuck in Quito
after getting two passports stolen along
with all his cash.
The park was insane. No one who had
ever skated this kind of terrain helped
build it. In fact, most of the best shit to
skate was not built with skating in mind at
all. It was crazy to see everyone attack the
park with different tactics; some people
were taking it easy while others started
hitting the big stuff right off the bat, fueled
from the energy of being on a road trip
along with the prospect of new terrain."
Another crazy thing was the amount of
people who came to spectate. There were
bleachers around the big bowl/pipe and
when Partanen did a backside lipslidę, it
was like somebody had hit a homerun in
the World Series. People were going nuts
and everyone was getting more amped to
skate. On the weekends there would be at
least 300 local Ecuadorians watching the
skating go down.
We got word of another skatepark
from some locals, but it seemed sketchy.
After trying to get the location for
several days, Tony from El Cafito made
some calls and we hooked up a private
session. The park was a semi replica of
the Parque Catalina, consisting of a
snakerun to a fullpipe which emptied
into a washed-out bowl. The park has
been there for four years, but there were
no signs of grind marks on the lip. The
crew started attacking it right away and
shit started to go down on this virgin
Steve Bailey takes trains across China for kicks. This ollie ain't no thang. avel alcooled!