Exploring the big city
Trip Start
Jul 15, 2006
1
7
11
Trip End
Jul 31, 2006
Guayaquil,
Ecuador
Saturday, July 22, 2006
We called some of the people we had met at the house party during our first visit to Guyaquil and they were excited to show us around town. We met up at the waterfront area called "El Malecon". This is a newly renovated stretch of the waterfront full of activity. It appears that half of the towns population comes out to spend time hanging out here. The idea is similar to Machala, however this waterfront is nice and clean, and there are a large number of restaurants and bars to visit.
That night we went clubbing at what appears to be the "baller" club of the city. It is located right on the waterfront, and is very expensive by Ecuadorian standards. The line up outside was huge, but the girls that came with us had some connections and we got to skip the line. The cover was $10 per person, however, following the Guyaquil custom, this translated towards alcohol. So we ended up with a couple of bottles of booze.
Inside the place was very extravagant, comparable to some of the nicer Toronto clubs. The music was mostly american hip hop and r&b, as well as reggaetone and some local tunes. The most surreal moment occurred around midnight when the music in the club suddenly stopped. The doors opend and a Mariachi band walked in. They got up on stage and proceeded to play for about half an hour. I guess this is a popular custom here as everyone in the club was singing along. Once they were done, they started packing up and the hip hop tunes came back on.
The next day we did some touristy stuff. I ended up buying a few souvenirs at the Flea market, we checked out some nice neighbourhoods and headed back to the malecon. Late in the afternoon we climbed the mountain overlooking the city. The climb takes about half an hour and is definately worth it. You essentially climb thousands of stairs through an ancient town built in the side of the mountain. The really cool part is that the town is still occupied and is full of little restaurants. After having an excellent dinner we continued to the top.
At the top is a guard tower surrounded by a wall with incredible views of the city and the waterfront. Once you are done, the way down is also much easier. That pretty much ate up the evening and we ended up back in the hotel packing up for the morning flight to the Galapagos. .
El Malecon
