Guayaquil Day 2

The day started out with rain, but luckily that stopped by the time we were ready to head out. Today we're doing both buses and the Metrovia, which is a faster bus that has it's own lanes (while most of the time!)  I check out the Moovit app and find that we can catch a bus 2 blocks away that will take us to the bus terminal near the airport and then we walk over to the Metrovia station.

We got to our bus stop and not to long afterwards our bus arrives. We pay the 60 cents to get on and off we go again :)  I read the sign on the window that shows that for students, disabled and seniors it's only 15 cents each!! Hey we've been over paying! Not sure what age you have to be to be elderly but we'll try it next time 😃

Taking the Metrovia means we have to purchase a card that can be loaded with credits. Dwayne puts in a $5 bill since the card costs $2. But we get no change back - we see that the $3 is now a credit on the card. We're going to have to take alot of Metrovia trips to use that up! So we get onto Line 1 which will take us right downtown to the area we were at yesterday.  The trip goes a lot faster then yesterday's bus trip.  When I go to take a picture of the station I realize I forgot to put my camera in my bag!! So had to use my iPhone until it died and then used Dwayne's.

Metrovia station

Once downtown we walk towards the Malećon. It runs along the Guayas River for about 3 kms. Before the Malećon we come up to a beautiful building that is the Municipal building of Guayaquil. It is not old, built in 1929, I like the design.

Took this one off the internet - mine seem so blah! It's really a pretty building

Then on to the Malećon which was a project started in the 90's to rejuvenate the waterfront which had deteriorated by the late 80's. Wasn't a safe place to walk at all. This area was opened in 1999 and has everything from shopping areas, to Imax theatre and museums along with lots of green space plus a dock for taking boat rides up the river.  The first place we stop at is the Clock Tower.  The actual clock was brought from Europe in the early 1800's but has had many different homes, normally falling apart after the clock was installed. Then in 1931 this tower was built for it's permanent home.  It was not telling the correct time for many years until 2013 when it was refurbished and once again showed the correct time and the bell rang on the hour.  To bad we got there just after 12 and missed hearing the ringing of the bell. We walked up the 4 flights of stairs to get to where we could see the working parts of the clock and also the bell.  All four sides of the tower has a clock face to show the time. The pendulum was one floor down and the weights were down below that.

The Clock Tower

View from the upper window - a little dark because it's screened - the ferris wheel at the end

The pendulum

Huge weight down to the 2nd floor

There are lots of statues along the Malećon of all the previous Presidents. There are actually ALOT of statues all over this city within the many parks. We saw this on our cheap bus tour! 😂.  There are also beautiful gardens with fish ponds and then and area with rides for kids.  Since today is Saturday there are lots of people on the Malećon today.  At the end there are rides for the old kids and adults which includes a HUGE ferris wheel that goes around very slowly - like the one at Myrtle Beach.  As it goes by you jump on and the doors close automatically and it slowly makes one complete rotation in 10 minutes. Since it was still a little foggy out we decided not to go on it.

La Rotonda with statues of José de San Martin and Simón Bolivar - liberators who fought the Spanish for freedom 

Guayaquil decked out for Christmas 

Interesting viewing stands along the malećon

Kids ride area

Beautiful gardens

This is the gondola project which seems to have started in 2017 but not sure much is being done now

Iced latte and a rest :)

Cool water feature

Cerro Santa Ana where the original city started back in the mid 1500's. There are 400+ stairs to get to the top - we decided to hot for that climb ;)

By the time we finished walking the Malećon it was time for lunch. We didnt find anything that appealed to us there so we started walking back towards the side streets looking for something different.  I'm surprised how quiet the streets are - where is everybody??? Especially on a Saturday? We find a small restaurant that is serving lunch for $2.50 each. I choose the fried fish and Dwayne has the chicken spaghetti.  We really enjoyed the lunch and much better price the Pizza hut 😉

After lunch we keep walking towards the centre of the city to check out a couple more churches. Again these churches aren't old but the interiors are still something to see.

Love the blue angels on the columns

Lots of statues all over the city - this one a crab vendor

Funny people hanging out at a restaurant 

We then decide to take the Metrovia back to the station and jump on to Line 2 and see what we can see on that tour ;)  But we can see that all the buses leaving the downtown area are packed!! But waiting probably isn't going to change that. So we go to the stop and wait. The first bus that comes is to packed by the time we could get on, so waited to be first on the next one. Didn't make alot of difference but after awhile we were able to get seats. I was actually motioned by one girl to take a seat that a young girl was giving up but I pointed to an older guy that I thought should use it. But he didn't so just like the girl sit there :)

Once back at the main bus terminal we were first on the bus to leave so we had front row seats!! This was great, no obstruction.  We travel thru the downtown again but on a different main street. We see at one end of a side street a whole bunch of blown up figures - big ones but not as big as those at Macy's parade in NYC.  Guess there must be something happening down there, but we don't get off to see it. After awhile we decide it's getting late and we should just get off at the next stop and take a bus going back to the main terminal.

So we get off and start to lineup again for the next bus, but I guess we were in the wrong lineup because a lady told us we need to go to the next doors over, this bus is just "local"  So guessing not going to the main terminal. We smile and thank her and move to the next door. Shortly after that the bus came, the doors opened and we were on the right bus going to the terminal. Ecuadorians are so helpful. They just seem to be watching us and know if we are making a mistake and they let us know 😍 just as helpful as the Colombians were to us to.  Wonder how Peruvians are going to be like??


Anyways as we are going thru the downtown area the street we are suppose to go down has been closed off and all those blowup figures are part of a parade!  So the bus has to detour over one street and our bus driver is not happy! This is suppose to be an express bus and we aren't going anywhere fast!  Love watching how he cuts of cars that are not even suppose to be in the bus lane anyways - much more fun sitting in the bus watching this then to be in the traffic! LOL!! Finally we get out of the traffic mess and the driver starts flying down the road!! Trying to make up time I guess. Really have to hang on going around the corners - and this isn't even a chicken bus when you expect that kind of driving!! 😂

We get back to the main station in one piece and head over to the bus terminal. As we go our I try and give our Metrovia card away to a women because it has about $2 left on it. The first one just showed me she had a card - maybe she thought I was trying to sell my card for $2??  I then went to another lady who just walking up to the turnstiles and I tried to explain I didnt need this card anymore and just gave it to her. She took it. Probably wondering WTH???  We can't use the card on the regular buses, only cash.  Once we get to where we had previously got off the bus we wait awhile. I saw one bus with the number on it that we're looking for but it had a B and we need A.  The driver confirmed A was coming.  I also asked if we could pay 15 cents and he looked at us and said Si! (Seniors price :)  Great! So our ride back to Vanna only cost us 30 cents - yeah! being old isn't ALL that bad LOL!!! As we are waiting for A to arrive it ends up being behind another bus and some people that were waiting for another bus looked at us and pointed towards the back of the bus to let us know our bus was there. Again Gracias!

We walk the couple of blocks back to the parking area, and since we missed our ice cream today, we stopped at a store and bought one 😃  Today it only got to 29C since it was overcast, so the walking was a lot nicer then yesterday but I still took a cold shower once we got back to cool.

Tomorrow we'll head back into the downtown and then rent a bicycle to go across to an island opposite the Malecón