Malecon 2000 Guayaquil

Hello everyone! After a full twentyfour hours of traveling on Friday I finally arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador at 2:00 AM. The flights really weren't too bad, because I slept the entire time:) I did wake up for about an hour on the third and final leg for some pasta and a couple of vodka 7s.
When i arrived Phil was already there waiting for me, …

After a long bus ride (with no more bad experiences thus far) we are in Guayaquil for an overnight stay until we get to the Galapagos Islands. I can't believe we are nearly in the Galapagos but I will contain my enthusiasm. . .well for a while.

Upon arrival at the bus station we were surprised to see how large and full of 'western' type …

The border crossing from Peru to Ecuador was fairly painless. To get into Ecuador there was only one window open at border patrol to give you entry stamps, so our entire busload of people took about 1 1/2 hours to get through. But thankfully I was one of the lucky few to get off the bus fast enough to stand under a small awning in the shade. Just …

Guayaquil is another big city and the stories we have heard about it are not very positive. So we want to spend as little time here as possible. But as our flight to the Galapagos departs from Guayaquil we have treated ourselves to a top of the market hostel for the night! Lovely!

Monday morning...... Galapagos Islands here we come!!!! :D< …

Its been a while that I've written something in here, but Miriam and I (yes, we're still travelling together) were in Ayampe for the last week and didn't have Internet, or we only had Wifi and I couldn't update the blog with my Ipod.

I'll quickly summarize how we spend the Easter weekend.
After we got to Guayaquil from Cuenca, Miriam …

... many of you may not even have heard about the place. But maybe it makes more sense when I tell you that Guayaquil is Ecuador's biggest city (apparently bigger than the capital Quito), a gateway to the Galapagos Islands (all flights go through here), ...

guayaquil is a nice modern town, with a beautiful and clean malecon 2000.. it was a delightful three days spent whilst waiting for my flight to the ...

... thousands of miles to eat crap food, when I can enjoy some local cuisine and support local business people. I'm heading for Malecon 2000. The rebuilt promenade. It's supposed to be very safe and even safer at night. I notice police officers and ...

... dizer que saí do hostel e 'conheci' a cidade.... Fui procurar um ceviche pra comer, afinal é super famoso..... achei no Malecon 2000 (tipo um calçadão enorme) um restaurante chamado Resaca.... pedi um ceviche.... no me gusta mucho, principalmente a ...

... downtown.  We went to the iguana park, checked out the cathedral (beautiful stained glass windows), walked along the Malecon 2000 (a long park by the river), walked up 444 flights of stairs through a really nice, restored neighborhood, and had a ...

... apparently trying to improve, so we thought we would stop over here.  They have redeveloped the waterfront, now called Malecon 2000, which was nice enough - it has gated and guarded entrances with gardens, fountains and plenty of shops ...

... at home knowing how ridiculous the markup had become. We spent all of our time in tourist locations - along the recently constructed Malecon 2000, in parks, and in the Anthropological Museum. This is natural, of course, logically a guide would want to ...

... As soon as we could get pigeon poop out of our hair we made our way down to the waterfront promenade known as the Malecon 2000. The promenade stretches 2.5 KM along the river banks and has shops, Japanese type gardens and an IMAX theatre. It was ...

After sleeping soundly, away from the grating noises of Riobamba, we revisited the Malecon 2000 promenade so that we could appreciate its beauty in daylight. We walked along its whole stretch, from its restaurants and cinema complex in the North, through ...

... in a pretty good mood! The city sits on a river and the boardwalk has been done up in a spectacular fashion. The Malecon 2000 runs for about 2.5km and includes a mini botanical garden, playgrounds, lookouts, shops, restaurants, and thousands of places ...