The last few days in Guayaquil

Hey! Sorry for the lack of updates but Guayaquil has had me busier than I would have ever imagined. These last two days I have been doing all of the tourist things. On Thursday Derek and I went to El Malecón 2000 where we walked through the whole thing and stopped to eat. It was really nice and the whole area has improved significantly since the last time I was here, they even have an IMAX. Still, we couldn't help but notice how much better it would look were the water cleaner. The Malecón as I mentioned before is a boardwalk and the river that it overlooks is called the Guayas river. It is an important river in South America because it is the only one that does not flow in to the Atlantic Ocean. It's also included within the Ecuadorian flag. The appearance of the water is brown and murky with some trash along the banks. I've been looking up some information on the state of the river and found one Ecuadorian source claiming that although the river does contain pollutants such as oil, the concentrations are below levels considered harmful to aquatic life. The company Soluciones Ambientales Totales (SAMBITO) led by Ecuadorian environmentalist José Guarderas, "achieved a 20 percent reduction in water consumption in farming processes, substantially reducing contamination in the Guayas River and mitigating bad odors that were affecting neighboring communities through the utilization of environmentally-friendly technologies.” Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool that there are people that want to make it better here.

After walking down the Malecón we went up Las Peñas and that was amazing. My aunts husband who drove us there told us that the neighborhood is one of Guyaquils oldest. Just a few years ago it was one of the most dangerous and poor parts of the city but the government decided to rehabilitate it. They gave the residents a lot of paint and invested money in improving the entire area. Today it is one of the nicest tourist attractions in the city. You go up a long flight of stairs exactly 444, I know that because they're labeled! The houses are bright and wonderful and at the very top there is a church and a light house. We went up and the view was amazing we saw the whole city from up there. Also at the top is a huge panoramic photograph of what the Malecon, which the Penas look down upon used to look in the 1880's. It was crazy to see how many less buildings there were. Aside from just along the river bank, the rest was all natural forest.

Yesterday, we took a day trip to El Parque Historico de Guayaquil. It was awesome! It's pretty much like the Jr. Museum in Tallahassee. They have several indigenous animals like the Tapiar and the Harpy eagle which can grow up to a meter tall! The park also has a reconstruction of the Guayaquil river front as it was in 1900. This includes actual buildings that have been moved and reassembled inside the park. They also have people that dress up in period costume. It was a really fun place, we learned a lot about Guayaquil's history. For example, Guayaquils economic boom was due to it's farming and exportation of cacao (cocoa beans). Ecuador is still the worlds fourth largest exporter of cacao, but number one in quality!

Tomorrow we leave to the Galapagos, Guayaquil has been nice but we're ready for a Galapagos adventure!

-Cristi

P.S. It was great to meet the Miami wedding party at the Historic Park! Hope the rest of your visit is great!