Every Monday and Wednesday evening, starting at 8:30PM, a group of Puerto Ayora residents gathers at Parque San Francisco to play Ultimate Frisbee together. About half of these 25- to 35-year olds are teachers at Tomás de Berlanga, and others work at the Charles Darwin Foundation or around town.

Parque San Francisco is a long and fairly narrow stretch of land between Charles Darwin Avenue and the shore, and to walk from Baltra Avenue (the main road that crosses the whole island from north to south) to the main pier one has to walk through the part of the park that skaters, Ecua-volley players, and Frisbee players use at different times of the day: youngsters anywhere between eight and eighteen years old are constantly skating on the cement space enclosed by steps lengthwise, a stage on one end, and a large cement ramp on the other. Metal rails are often laid out to practice rail-grinds or hopping over the rail while the skateboard rolls under it. Skaters dominate this part of the park (the other parts are a sandy playground and some benches shaded by trees lining the coast) for most of the day, until 4:30PM or so when the volleyballers come out to set up two courts on one of the rectangle. These Ecua-volley players (who deserve their own post) then share half the park with the skaters, with the occasional stray ball or board, until the late evening, when volleyball stops and the skating continues on.

Playing Ultimate Frisbee requires forcing the skaters off most of the rectangle, which sometimes takes a while but ends up working out most evenings. From there, we divide into—hopefully—even teams (either two or three groups of five or six, depending on the amount of players) and play as late as 11PM, sometimes in a light drizzle. The narrowness of the park means that there is always a risk of the Frisbee floating onto Charles Darwin avenue (which it has done, and almost gotten run over) and a slightly lower chance of it falling over the railing into the ocean five or six meters away from the rectangle. The endzones are made dangerous by the large ramp one one side, the stage on the other, and trees on both sides—the fact that small children love running up the ramp at all times of the day, and often wander into the field of play, increases the range of obstacles to be dealt with.

The mix of skill levels among players is quite diverse, and makes for interesting games; I’ll let the video speak for the rest.