- Further research regarding the Galapagos
- Tour of the city center
- Marvel at iguanas in the Parque de las Iguanas city park
- Walk along the kilometer-long Malecon2000
After the meager hostel breakfast, we scour the Internet and find out more about the Galapagos Islands and see what our cruise offers so far have included. We haven't made up our minds yet and would like to wait to see whether there are any more offers available.
So we march again to busy CityMall to eat a fruit salad and have a drink. We buy some more groceries and after another USD withdrawal we go back to the hostel, after all it is already noon. And with large sums of money one shouldn't march through the streets in South America in general and here in Guayaquil anyway. Among the purchases is a delicious piece of Gruyère cheese, which tastes almost as good as at home.
Then we want to take the bus to the city center, which turns out to be an eternal wait. Annoyed it goes by Taxi to the Parque Seminario, also known as Parque de las Iguanas. The primeval-looking iguanas can be seen here in large numbers. In the middle of the pretty park is the statue of Freedom Fighter Simon Bolivar, behind it rises the magnificent facade of the cathedral.
We walk on to the banks of the Rio Guayas, where the flagship project of urban renewal stands: the 2.5 km long Malecon 2000 promenade. There is a lot of hype on today's Mother's Day. It is lined with an incredible number of people Fast food stalls, be it the usual international fast food chains or simply local stalls. It goes on to the little available Mercado Artesanal and back to the city center. Here, too, KFC, McDonalds, BurgerKing and Friends line up just like that, and apart from a few pretty colonial buildings, the city doesn't look much.
We are looking for another tourist office to get offers, but almost everything is closed on Sundays. Then we find what we are looking for in a hostel and receive another very inexpensive offer, but not with the desired information. An 8-day cruise that would start tomorrow ... almost suspiciously cheap (1300 USD), only the provider doesn't even know the name of the ship.
We drive back to the CityMall shopping center to eat and then back to the hostel to pack, read, journal and plan.
