| | Nov 25, 2008 - Guayaquil, Ecuador | (click to enlarge)
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 | | show all 9 | | Entrance to Bolivar Park | | Bolivar Park or Iguana Park | | Neat squirrel | | |
| When we enter a new town, we usually try to spend the night in the center of town. Our trusty Lonely Planet guide and an outdated Fodor's guide generally recommends hotels in the center of town. We've not been disappointed, and have enjoyed the activities we find in downtowns. Guayaquil has been no exception.
The downtown area is beautiful! You can see from the photos how even the city municipal building is beautiful. The city had redone their downtown river walk area in 2000, and it makes for a pleasant day to walk down the river front. Henry Morgan's pirate ship is what will bring Papa Noel (Santa Claus) to town in December.
The Bolivar Park, also called Iguana Park, is around the corner from our hotel. We took a picture of the squirrel because it's the first squirrel we've seen in South America. Paraguay doesn't have squirrels. This one is a dark brown/black with touches of red. Very different from a Georgia squirrel. And there were LOTS of iguanas. You had to pay attention above as well as below while walking. It seems the iguanas like to climb trees and perch on the limbs - and they need to use the bathroom a lot. They were worse than flocks of birds in trees.
We've also sampled a little of the local food. We've had sango and cazuela. Both are made from mashed green plantains with other things added. One had shrimp and the other had pieces of fish. They were very similar, but one had cumin added. It's not something we would order again, but it was "interesting". What we've really liked is how much shrimp there is here! We ate at a restaurant with a buffet lunch and had almost more shrimp than we could eat! What a treat.
The only problems we've had are regarding shipping our truck to Panama City, Panama. It seems the original company we were planning to use isn't interested in helping us, and this is after repeated telephone messages. So, we've found another shipping company and hopefully we'll be out of Ecuador by this Friday - 11/28! BTW, that's also our anniversary, yes, 39 years and still together.
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