Hundreds of thousands gather for pope Mass in South America

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people filled a park in Ecuador’s main port city Monday for Pope Francis’ first big event of his three-nation South American tour, hoping for a glimpse of Latin America’s first pope returning to his home soil for a Mass dedicated to the family.

Many pilgrims spent the night outdoors, and some walked for miles to reach the park on Guayaquil’s northern outskirts where the crowd sang hymns and sought pockets of shade to keep cool amid the scorching sun and high humidity. Firefighters sprayed them with water hoses to provide relief.

“I’m tired. I’m hungry, I haven’t slept but I’m also full of emotion and joy in my heart,” said Vicente Huilcatoma, a 47-year-old retired police officer who walked 25 miles (40 kilometers) to reach Samanes Park.

The Vatican had originally estimated more than 1 million people would turn out for the Mass, and government organizers put the crowd at above 1 million people in the hour before the Mass began. But Gabriel Almeida, the government spokesman at the scene, rolled back the estimate to several hundred thousands after officials viewed aerial images of the area.

Across the park, Ecuadoran national flags and papal banners waved above the enormous sea of people, who were divided into quadrants that Francis looped around slowly on his popemobile to cheers of “Francisco! Francisco!”