The clan needs to stay over in Guayaquil on the way to the Galapagos Islands and finds a cool, charming city to explore.

Boring travel day or so we hope.  Alpaca Expeditions offered us a complimentary ride to the airport despite a 5 am leave time.  We do get a brilliant sunrise although I think everyone would have rather skipped the sunrise if they could have slept in. We loved our Peruvian tour company that John found!  Highly recommend it. 

We have a flight from Cusco to Lima and then Lima to Guayaquil in Ecuador.  The exit immigration in Lima is a lot less chaotic and much faster than the entry immigration where we almost missed our flight to Cusco. We are waiting for our flight to Guayaquil when a message comes over the loudspeakers in Espanol asking for Ashlynn to come up to the gate desk.  Leanne blurts out, “Oh my God, what if they’re trying to throw her off the flight!!!” Ashlynn turns pale and looks like she’s going to be violently ill. “Let’s just find out what they want,” Kyle says trying to keep everything calm. We walk up to the desk and it turns out that Ashlynn was in an exit row seat but she is under 18 so they needed to re-seat her.  No es problema.  The color returns to Ashlynn’s face.  The funny this is that Ashley who is thirteen was also seated in the exit row next to Ashlynn and they didn’t say anything about her. 

We return to our seats and then start boarding.  The minute Kyle steps on the plane he remembers he took his favorite sweatshirt that he has worn all trip off at the seats but forgot about it with all the hullabaloo with Ashlynn’s ticket.  The flight attendant won’t let him back off the plane but promises to call and have someone at the gate bring it on.  After takeoff, Kyle inquiries about his sweatshirt. The flight attendant stammers a little, “ummm…yeah….umm…I radio’d to the gate but no one responded.” Kyle replies, “you forgot, didn’t ya?” Kyle is bummed about his sweatshirt but at least we’re going to be in warm weather countries for the next couple months.

We arrive in Guayaquil which is the second largest city in Ecuador and a port city of approximately 3 million people. It is the gateway city to fly to the Galapagos Islands which we are doing tomorrow. The timing gives us half a day to get a glimpse into this port city. Ecuador uses the US Dollar and does not have their own currency (save a few coins) but we still need an ATM as we are fresh out of US Dollars.

For the afternoon, we venture out and hit Parque Semanario which is a famous iguana park in the city.  We enter and man, they’re not joking around about the iguanas; they’re everywhere you look.  We estimate there were over a hundred iguanas. We buy a bag a lettuce to feed them. The come right up to you and eat the lettuce out of your hand.  Although some are as big as a large dog, they are docile reptiles and the only one that looks remotely scared is Leanne.  “What if they eat your finger along with the lettuce?” 

Across the street is the Guayaquil Cathedral which we enter and look around.  The Roman Catholic church was built in a neo-gothic style and opened in 1937.  It was built on the same site as the original church which dates back to the city’s founding but was destroyed in a fire in 1892.

We truck back to the hotel for some free ice cream and to rest a little. At night, we explore the promenade and boardwalk. It’s a Saturday night in the summer and the place is hopping with families, street performers and adoring couples. There are people performing for tips up and down the boardwalk and we stumble into a giant live dance performance with 100+ people watching.  We ride the Guayaquil Ferris Wheel which is the largest one in South America.  A few guys following us screeching ”Wa Wa” in a singsong pattern.  What’s going on, thinks Leanne?  This is new.  It took her a bit but after the third guy did it, she realizes it was just a street vendor selling aqua.  

We have a wonderful family dinner and get to bed by 10 p.m. still restoring ourselves from Peru.