QUITO, Ecuador — As Jamaica continues its preparation for the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers next year, a slew of international friendlies is in store to keep the team active and to help gel the players into a formidable unit.

The intention of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) is to play a match on every allocated FIFA football date.

Following their impressive display at the CONCACAF Gold Cup in June where they won three games and lost to the USA in the quarter-finals, the Reggae Boyz were active again last month, travelling to the Far East to engage China in a game they lost 1-0.

The Boyz arrived in Ecuador on Monday for their friendly game tomorrow in Ecuador’s capital.

Jamaica and Ecuador last played in 2009 in New Jersey, battling to a 0-0 draw, but this time, the intention is to simulate as similar rarified air condition, some 9,000 feet above sea level.

This would be as if the Reggae Boyz were in high altitude Mexico City to play perennial rivals Mexico, against whom they have always faltered, courtesy of the challenging atmosphere.

Not much is known about Ecuador as a footballing nation, and especially Quito, where the match will be played.

The Jamaica team arrived here to a throng of reporters — far more than what they are accustomed to back home.

Jamaica have two national television stations and a few cable networks, plus two national daily papers, compared to 20 TV stations and over 30 newspaper companies in Quito alone.

The capital, officially known as San Francisco de Quito, has a population of nearly three million of the 14 million Ecuadorians.

Quito is located on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains and crucially, is 9,000 feet above sea level — second only to La Paz, Bolivia.

Quito is the second most populous city in Ecuador, after Guayaquil. In 2008, the city was designated the headquarters of the Union of South American Nations.

Quito is a typical South American setting, very mountainous with thousands of closely-knitted homes built and perched precariously on the hillsides.

In the city, whatever mode of transportation is used, it must have a very good braking system as a large number of roads are built on slopes, typical of a Latin American setting.

The central square of Quito is located about 25 kilometres south of the equator, which is said to be in the middle of the world. The general thought that the city would be extremely hot is not so, however. The sun is quite prominent, but it is very windy and cold, at least for now.

Ecuador, like most countries in the region, was invaded and occupied by Spain for nearly 300 years. It gained political independence in 1822, with the help of the great liberator, Simon Bolivar.