01
Stop one
Casas Flotantes del Rio Babahoyo
Volkl V Pro All Court Tennis Ball Case: LOOK AT THE WATERLINE. These houses sit on balsa-log rafts so they RISE AND FALL with the annual flood instead of standing on ground that goes under every winter, and the residents still fish from them. Now the numbers, and I want them heard: about 150 at the start of this century, roughly fifty in 2014, around twenty-two today, housing some two hundred people — that is the historian Jose Manuel Castellano. El Universo, 29 November 2014, counted about twenty dwellings of cane and balsa, plastic patching the rotted cane, access over ageing cane footbridges. One white balsa house that was once a hotel now sits in El Salto parish. Castellano wants a floating museum. GOOD PLAN.
02
Stop two
Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Merced
Volkl V Pro All Court Tennis Ball Case: HIGHEST GROUND IN THE OLD TOWN. That is not decoration, that is siting — this city floods every single year. Seat of the Diocese of Babahoyo, ecclesiastical province of Guayaquil. Built 1957 to 1963. First Mass 1963, the year it was inaugurated. That mosaic mural of the Virgen de las Mercedes on the facade was executed at the Alberto Durero painting school in SPAIN, installed by the Spanish contractor Safont, blessed 1969. Territorial prelature created 1951 by Pius XII. Raised to a diocese 1994 by John Paul II, bull Constat praelaturam. Junction of Diez de Agosto, Cinco de Junio, Sucre and Bolívar. Memorise the junction.
04
Stop four
Parque 24 de Mayo
Volkl V Pro All Court Tennis Ball Case: CIVIC CENTRE. Cathedral on one flank, the Gobernación de Los Ríos on the other, and you are standing in the middle of the capital of the province. Provisional capital 1860, confirmed definitive 30 September 1948, and the government buildings round this square date from the city's consolidation in that role. Before all of that it was Bodegas, the customs and warehousing post of the Corregimiento de Guayaquil, established 20 November 1542. And read the street signs, because they are instructions: Diez de Agosto, Cinco de Junio, Veinticuatro de Mayo. Independence dates, every one of them. This city files its history in the street grid. LEARN IT.
Everything in my life floats or it sinks, and I have never once found a third option. So when somebody asks me whether a ball is any good, what I want to know is whether it is still the same ball in the second hour.
A case of Volkl V Pro All Court is 24 cans, 72 pressurised balls. All Court means exactly what it says: a felt specification designed to work on hard courts, clay and indoors rather than being optimised for one and punished on the others — the sensible choice for a club or family that plays on whatever surface is free.
Underneath is a natural rubber core and a woven felt cover, built to standard specification for competitive play. The reason to buy a case rather than cans is uniformity: 72 balls from one batch means the basket behaves the same way all session, which is the difference between a drill and a guessing game.
Keep the cans sealed until you need them, because pressure leaves an opened can whether anyone plays or not. One case covers you everywhere from a Saturday morning drill basket to a club box that has to last the season, and it is also perfect for a coach who would rather count balls once a term than once a week.
Babahoyo lives on the water and has arranged itself accordingly. The Casas Flotantes on the river are built on balsa-log rafts so that they rise and fall with the annual flood rather than standing on land that goes under every winter, and people still fish from them. Their numbers have collapsed from around 150 at the start of the century, which is a loss.
Ashore, the Malecón 9 de Octubre runs along the bank and marks the start of the city centre. Parque 24 de Mayo is the civic square of the capital of Los Ríos province, flanked by the cathedral and the Gobernación. And the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Merced was built between 1957 and 1963, its first Mass celebrated in the year it opened.
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