Guayaquil

We were sad to leave the Galapagos, but Guayaquil was the perfect ending to our trip. In the past few years, the city has revamped itself, with a clean streets campaign, a gorgeous restored waterfront and an updated city center. It couldn't have been more inviting. Las Penas, the oldest area of the city, and the Malecon 2000, an enormous boardwalk with monuments, parks and cafes, were definitely worth a visit. The views from the lighthouse were also amazing.

An interesting little aside is that, like Americans, Ecuadorians seem to love chicken and turkey. Much to my delight, most restaurants featured poultry, a rarity in beef-centric BA. We noticed several American restaurant chains as well, which are also uncommon where we are, due to extremely high import taxes. Seeing familiar stores, foods, and much lower prices was an unexpected treat!

We left balmy (and overcast) 86 degree weather and stepped back into winter and a 40 degree chill. Although the extreme change in temps was a shock, we are lucky that the winters here are mild and the skies are almost always sunny and blue.

This is the last of our big trips until December, when we'll take the family truckster on a road trip through Northern Argentina.

Can you believe we've been in Argentina for almost a year?





The teen girls in Ecuador were Teague crazy! They would squeal and take pictures when they saw him.


The blonde hair/blue eyes combo isn't common there.


Climbing 400 steps to the lighthouse.


The bottled water ads featured this baby. Weird on so many levels.


They rented these battery powered ride-ons at the parks, $1.00 for 15 minutes. We literally had to pry Teague's hands off of this.


Hanging out in a typical town square--cathedral, pigeons and...more creepy iguanas.



So many things wrong with this picture.