Today we officially left the Galapagos for good. It was such a sad day nut again like I said I was really looking forward to the rest of the trip. We then landed back in Guayaquil and went back to the first hotel that we stayed at, the Hotel Continental. There we unpacked and settled in for one more night before we left to go on a walking tour of the city. Guayaquil was known as the most dangerous city that we were visiting so it was important for us to all stay together and listen to what Diego and Tait were telling us. We started our tour off at the Iguana park which was right across the street from our hotel. The park was a nice square courtyard like park with fences around the outside to keep the iguanas themselves in. This park as you could guess was full with iguanas everywhere, and it was open to the public. People were touching, playing wit, and feeding the animals all over the place… Just a bit different than the Galapagos in which you had to stay three meters away from the wildlife let alone touch it. Diego then took a minute to go over risks within the city. There is potential for pick-pocketing, so He was telling us ways to prevent that and then for guys he was telling us about something called “sweet dreams” in which an attractive girl will approach a man and have him smell her perfume, except the perfume knocks the guy out and you wake up with nothing and everything that you had has been stolen. We also talked about the multiple vendor that were selling water, or should I saw “Aquwawawawawa”. These guys would just walk around yelling that carrying a bunch of bottles of water, the thing is some of those guys get the water bottles from the trash can and then fill them up with unsafe water and tries to sell them. Its pretty crazy how many people were trying to see water. From the Iguana park we walked over to the riverfront. There was a nice stretch of parks and food vendors and activities and an abundance of people at the riverfront. We were heading to the lighthouse and the 444 steps it takes to get to the top of the hill that the lighthouse was on.
We stopped by the river to discuss the socioeconomic struggle of the city and why it is the way that it is. Diego explained that there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor in the city and there really is no middle class, this get perpetuated through generations due to the promiscuous nature of the people that live there, they have a lot of kids. Most of the time the kids are born into a poor family and they have a large number of siblings and the parent have a limited amount of money available. Diego even mentioned that in some cases one man may have two separate families that don’t even know about each other. Then that man will be working a security guard job and barley be able to help support one of the families let alone two. This then opens the door to child labor. Some of these parents identify that they can’t support the kids, so they will send them out to work or sell things such as water on the streets. Or they will teach the kids how to pickpocket things from foreigners or upper-class citizens. Recently the government has been cracking down on this because they want to break the cycle, all children are required to attend the free government funding schooling and if a kid is seen working anywhere they will be taken in by the government and put into a school. This move is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of trying to build a bridge between the two social classes present in the city.
We then continued along the riverfront toward the famous hill of Guayaquil. The hill has exactly 444 steps, and it was hot and humid, so it was going to be a fun climb. By the time we go halfway I was sweating my butt off, but it was definitely an awesome experience. The whole climb up is lined with different restaurants and bars on either side of the walkway, it was a very lively area. We finally reach step number 444 and walked over to the lighthouse and took a climb to the top of that too. From here we saw a magnificent view of the entire city a Guayaquil at night, twas a beautiful sight. After we spent some time here it was time to get some dinner. A group of people wanted traditional Ecuadorian food but then there was also a group of us that really wanted Wendy’s. I ended up at Wendy’s with some others while Tait and the other group went with Diego to a more traditional Ecuadorian restaurant. I was extremely satisfied with my decision. Nothing compares to a nice greasy burger as bad as that sounds. Overall It was a good first day on the mainland. The next day was a big one as we planned to go to the Cacao Farm, Churte, and Cajas National Park which is around 13000-14000 ft above elevation. Cajas is where we will end the day and the cacao farm, which is at sea level, is where we will start the day. I was really looking forward to it. Time to take some altitude meds!
We stopped by the river to discuss the socioeconomic struggle of the city and why it is the way that it is. Diego explained that there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor in the city and there really is no middle class, this get perpetuated through generations due to the promiscuous nature of the people that live there, they have a lot of kids. Most of the time the kids are born into a poor family and they have a large number of siblings and the parent have a limited amount of money available. Diego even mentioned that in some cases one man may have two separate families that don’t even know about each other. Then that man will be working a security guard job and barley be able to help support one of the families let alone two. This then opens the door to child labor. Some of these parents identify that they can’t support the kids, so they will send them out to work or sell things such as water on the streets. Or they will teach the kids how to pickpocket things from foreigners or upper-class citizens. Recently the government has been cracking down on this because they want to break the cycle, all children are required to attend the free government funding schooling and if a kid is seen working anywhere they will be taken in by the government and put into a school. This move is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of trying to build a bridge between the two social classes present in the city.
We then continued along the riverfront toward the famous hill of Guayaquil. The hill has exactly 444 steps, and it was hot and humid, so it was going to be a fun climb. By the time we go halfway I was sweating my butt off, but it was definitely an awesome experience. The whole climb up is lined with different restaurants and bars on either side of the walkway, it was a very lively area. We finally reach step number 444 and walked over to the lighthouse and took a climb to the top of that too. From here we saw a magnificent view of the entire city a Guayaquil at night, twas a beautiful sight. After we spent some time here it was time to get some dinner. A group of people wanted traditional Ecuadorian food but then there was also a group of us that really wanted Wendy’s. I ended up at Wendy’s with some others while Tait and the other group went with Diego to a more traditional Ecuadorian restaurant. I was extremely satisfied with my decision. Nothing compares to a nice greasy burger as bad as that sounds. Overall It was a good first day on the mainland. The next day was a big one as we planned to go to the Cacao Farm, Churte, and Cajas National Park which is around 13000-14000 ft above elevation. Cajas is where we will end the day and the cacao farm, which is at sea level, is where we will start the day. I was really looking forward to it. Time to take some altitude meds!