12-13.04.11 Guayaquil, Ecuador

After speaking with a number of bus companies, we quickly found out that the only direct buses to Ecuador were via Guayaquil in the south-west instead of our preference of Loja in the south.  We changed our itinery at the last minute and booked a bus ticket for the next day.

It turned out that the ‘direct’ bus ticket we were sold entailed two different bus companies and 3 hours in the northern city of Piura, Peru and no food as promised.  The less said about that journey the better and 18 hours later we arrived at Guayaquil.  The humidity of the coastal jungle hit us as soon as we jumped off the bus and after a quick bite to eat we were flying down the highway in a taxi through one of the most modern looking cities we have travelled through to date.  With no reservation and very few budget hostels mentioned in our guide book, we headed for the ‘Parque Seminario’ where most of the hotels seemed to be located.  Ryan (a man with expensive taste) suggested we head for the Continental Hotel which turned out to priced at around $95.  Although he did his best at haggling, with the best will in the world they were never going to drop their prices by 70% so we headed back out in the heat to continue our search.  On the way out the bellboy asked our price range and he kindly took us to a more suitable but still over priced hotel.  The central location was great though and enabled us to get straight out exploring.

Catherdral, Parque Seminario

Our first stop was the Malecon Project which was definitely a highlight of the city.  Completed in 2000, the 3km long waterfront project along the River Guayas includes a botanical garden which houses more than 300 species of coastal plants, numerous plazas, the La Rotunda monument commemorating South Americans liberators, IMAX cinema and a number of food courts to mention but a few.  A really successful urban design project (although some of the architecture is questionable) which is well used both day and night by the locals as the cities’ amenity space.

La Rotunda Monument commemorating Simon Bolivar and San Martin, South America's liberators

At the end of Malecon is another recent renovation project of the artists’ area of Las Penas.  With a similar feel and look to Valparaiso in Chile, old cobbled streets and steps wind their way up to Cerro Santa Ana providing some great views across Guayaquil.  A real bonus for both projects is that a significant number of security guards are on watch protecting both the locals and tourists from inevitable street crime of a relatively poor district.  

Ryan posing in Las Penas

We ended our day by wandering through the city in search of a restaurant to eat which was a surprisingly difficult task.  We were obviously looking in the wrong area as all we could spot were shops, cafes, churches and the odd Chifa (Chinese).   

One of the many colourful churches of Guayaquil

We walked through the Parque Seminario on the way back to the Malecon Project and were pleasantly surprised to see loads of Iguanas crawling about amongst the people and pigeons.  It was crazy that they were so tame and ‘urbanised’.  The one thing we couldn’t work out though is how they knew not to leave the park into the danger of the surrounding traffic?!

Urban Iguanas in Parque Seminario