After sadly leaving behind the magical Galapagos Islands we had to stay overnight in mainland Ecuador. The way that the flights worked out we landed in Guayaquil, Ecuador yesterday in the afternoon and just checked into a hotel and relaxed (and tried to sort through our pictures/videos). On a whim we checked Trip Advisor about things to do a Guayaquil and read great reviews about a 3 hour tour....city tour that is. So I called the guide and miraculously he could fit us in for a tour this morning before our flight at 3pm. Guayaquil is the economic and professional center of Ecuador, where it's neighbor more inland, Quito is the political center. Our guide said, "Guayaquil is like New York, it makes all the money and Quito is like Washington DC, it spends all the money."
Less than 15 years ago tourists couldn't even walk around Guayaquil because it was dirty, dangerous, and ugly as per our guide. But over the last 15 years, the government has put a lot of effort into reforming the city and has really done a remarkable job. They built a beautiful esplanade right on Guayas River (but we will get to that in a minute). First stop was the Simon Bolivar Park, or as the locals call it the Iguana Park. This is a beautiful fenced in park right in the middle of the city, only about a city block in size. Besides being so beautiful, this park is famous for being home to over 200 land iguanas! They can climb trees or swim in the little ponds but they are everywhere....trust me, one of them pooped on me from a tree above! NICE! They are really funky looking with these strange "beards" that they wiggle around when they want to attract a mate. These iguanas will spend their entire lives in this park, being feed lettuce once a day by locals. They are like the Galapagos Marine Iguanas in their comfort-level with humans. Aside from sending us a message via excrement, they seemed like they couldn't care less if people were all around or not.
Then went to the esplanade and learned a lot about the independence of Guayaquil and Ecuador (although lets be honest, jeremy had a more than average understanding of these things prior to our tour...I however was essentially hearing the info for the first time). We saw some neat statues and the waterfront is just awesome! The esplanade is about 2 miles long and we walked its complete length. It has amazing landscaping with ponds, animals, and all kinds of clever walkways. They had several playgrounds and really unique structures dedicated to the 4 elements.
As we neared the end of the esplanade we could see a hill covered in colorful houses, which we learned was called Santa Ana Hill. This area used to be a slum until about 5 years ago when the government offered to fix up the houses and provide security and now it is a really unique place to see. We wound our way through and up Santa Ana Hill (444 steps!) and the views along the way were awesome. As part of remembering their past, the city has pictures posted on each of the buildings/homes they have restored (which was A LOT) and you can see the major improvements that have been made. Of course the ppl that live there are still the same and likely have many of the same challenges that they always had...just with prettier houses and now a chance to sell something to tourists on their way passing through.....but it is a really good effort to try to make this area safer and bring opportunity. We could see a nearby hill with similar houses only these have not been fixed up yet and you can see the homes are in disrepair. Currently the government is trying to work out a plan with that group of people next.
Finally we walked through a historic area where the homes are over 100 years old and still made of wood and bamboo. Most of the rest of the city is made of concrete or stone and the original homes were burned by pirates. Apparently since Guayaquil was once a major port (now the river is too shallow to support huge ships), it was destroyed by pirates on a number of occasions. The historic district is the only area of the city that was spared because it was fortified with cannons.
Then we took a 2 minute shower back at the hotel (remember the iguana poo) and caught a flight to Panama. We are one more flight away from JFK and the end of our adventure.
Thanks for following with us, stay tuned for Jeremy's teaser video (which he will post here soon) and eventually his documentary!
Happy Father's Day to you dads out there!!
XOXO
As we neared the end of the esplanade we could see a hill covered in colorful houses, which we learned was called Santa Ana Hill. This area used to be a slum until about 5 years ago when the government offered to fix up the houses and provide security and now it is a really unique place to see. We wound our way through and up Santa Ana Hill (444 steps!) and the views along the way were awesome. As part of remembering their past, the city has pictures posted on each of the buildings/homes they have restored (which was A LOT) and you can see the major improvements that have been made. Of course the ppl that live there are still the same and likely have many of the same challenges that they always had...just with prettier houses and now a chance to sell something to tourists on their way passing through.....but it is a really good effort to try to make this area safer and bring opportunity. We could see a nearby hill with similar houses only these have not been fixed up yet and you can see the homes are in disrepair. Currently the government is trying to work out a plan with that group of people next.
No comments:
Post a Comment