city sightseeing in Guayaquil

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One of the reasons we decided to head to Guayaquil for the weekend is that this particular weekend was a bank holiday in Ecuador for El Dia del Muerte - the day of the dead - which is the day after hallowe´en, and the most important holiday in Ecuador (celebrated by the indigenous more than Christmas is!) This meant many inhabitants of Guyaquil headed to the coast for the weekend (and the price of our beach hut would have shot up from $6 each a night to $25 each!) meaning everything was much cheaper in Guayaquil!

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As we were only there for Friday and Saturday nights we decided to do a whirlwind sightseeing tour of the city on Saturday before more bus travel all day Sunday. Guayaquil is the biggest city in Ecuador (bigger that the capital of Quito) and used to have a very bad reputation for being unsafe for tourists, but has had money pumped into it in recent years, making it very interesting to explore!

The city is on a massive estuary and so we firstly headed to the old docks, Malecón, which have been transformed into as long river-side walk with statues, gardens, restaurants and lots to see which was very beautiful, especially in the beautiful sunshine. We explored the old market which sold just about everything in very narrow streets - we were warned to be very careful of pickpockets here, but passed through event-free!

doing my best to poke an iguana
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After this we sat and had lunch in a park and found it was completely covered in iguanas! It was a very strange sight to see giant lizards stalking children for their snacks! Apparently the iguanas live only in this small park, and no one knows why or where the first ones came from, but now there are easily a hundred.

In fact, while sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree Phil and I were pooed on by an iguana in the branches (Phil thinks weed on, but I think pooed on - either way there was about a pint of liquid!) Just as it happened Phil was in the middle of pointing out to me that there was an iguana right about our heads, so we were both looking up. Luckily it landed mostly on our legs, and I screamed, drawing the attention of everyone in the park. Apparently it´s very lucky, an old Ecuadorian who shuffled past told us.

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After drying off a little we headed up steep winding cobbled streets past brightly coloured houses to the old lighthouse, giving beautiful views of the whole city at sunset. We decided to get a bus back to the hostel rather than an expensive taxi, but somehow managed to get off at the wrong stop and found ourselves very lost in the dark in fairly unfriendly streets. Phil, very sensibly said we should keep walking as nothing says "rob me" quite like stopping and consulting the map in the guide book! So we walked looking for anything that looked familiar to no avail! When we eventually asked in the first shop we came across and the lady not only hadn´t heard of the hostel, but also neither the road it was on, nor the main road near it, we realised we were in a little trouble - but after 10 more minutes walking we found a taxi who whisked us away!

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A fun day exploring a city - Next stop: volunteering in the mountains!